Defying Gravity
by wellsbells
Summary: Helena Wells has lost her family, and moves to New York to start a new life. There she meets Myka Bering. Then stuff happens. Part 2 of my Broadway series. First part is For Good
1. Chapter 1

A/N So this is the beginning of Helena's story, starting from her arrival in New York. We don't go directly to the resolution of what happened at the end of For Good, for which I hope you will forgive me (assuming anyone is still reading after that!). Helena's side of things is quite dark at times. There are mentions of suicidal ideation, violence, and other such cheery matters.

Helena George Wells arrived in New York a few days before term began at Juillard. She was 20 years old, and had already borne and lost a child, had been orphaned and left entirely without family, without home, without tether. She was a millionaire many times over because of her father's business acumen and investments, all of which had been passed to her upon completion of the probate process following his death, and the death of Charles, her brother, and Christina, her daughter. The money was something she couldn't comprehend, couldn't incorporate into her new perspective of the world. What could it matter that she was rich, when the one person she loved – the one person who made her whole, was gone, burned to ash, and her heart with them? She did not enjoy grunge music as a rule, but had, on one occasion, listened to a band called Pearl Jam at a party thrown by one of her classmates at Mountview Academy, the stage school she had always dreamed of attending. A dream that had crumbled to ash along with the ruins of her family and her home. The lyrics of one song had come back to her over and over, haunted her when she was hospitalised following Christina's death.

 _"Turned my world to black, tattooed all I see, all that I am, all I'll be..."_

She was lost, and she knew that this, her place at the new school, was her last chance to find something to tether her to this world before she was lost to oblivion. She had agreed with her psychiatrist that she would try to have a life, try to honour her daughter by making something of herself. But she had made another bargain, this one with herself. She would give it one last try, and if it didn't work, she was finished. And so she set about her studies with her usual determination, but beneath it all, when she was honest with herself, she knew that she was praying for failure, and for the blessed nothingness that would follow. The doctors called it suicidal ideation, but she regarded it simply as a release from the horrific pain that filled her. Her loss had tattooed everything.

Juilliard was impressive, well-equipped and staffed with astonishingly competent teachers and performers and technicians and artists of all kinds. Term began, and she held herself back from trying to make friends, her usual reserve reinforced with a frostiness that put most of her classmates off trying again. Steve Jinks, however, wouldn't let her be. He introduced himself, and challenged her to get to know him. Didn't she want any friends? She said she didn't, and he said that she was lying, looking at her intently with those crystal-blue eyes and a slight grin. She was charmed, despite herself, and introduced herself haughtily before beginning to laugh at his sly smile. And when he introduced her to his other friends (how had he even had the time to meet so many people?) she was amused by Claudia's punk look and foul motor mouth, Pete's silliness, and Abigail's quiet intelligence. They clicked immediately, she and Abigail, and spent many breaks and lunchtimes talking quietly about philosophy and psychology, a subject Helena had received an unwelcome introduction to during her incarceration on a mental health ward. Abigail was quiet, sympathetic, and knowing. But she never said anything about the pain and grief she saw clearly written on Helena's face.

The last of the group was Myka. She was a tall, slightly stooped figure with a mass of curls and beautiful green eyes which were only visible when one could persuade her to emerge from behind her shield of hair. She held herself in a defensive posture at all times, arms pulled in, hiding behind her hair and watching the people around her nervously, almost fearfully. Helena had tried to talk to her, and Myka had leapt – actually _leapt_ \- into the air and blushed like a naughty schoolgirl. It was that image that probably started her thinking about Myka as she shouldn't have. She had entertained crushes (and more, in one particularly pleasant instance) on some of the girls in her class at school – she'd gone to Catholic school and the uniforms were alluring, somehow, on some of the other girls (and particularly alluring on Helena herself, a fact that she had used to her advantage on more than one occasion). But Myka was clearly young and inexperienced, and Helena wasn't about to take advantage of that. And she herself was not ready for any of that kind of thing. She told herself to forget about the girl, and focus on her reasons for coming here, for uprooting her entire life. (Because trying to avoid temptation had always worked so well for her in the past, she thought to herself wryly.)

It was easy to avoid Myka, it turned out, because Myka avoided _her_ like the plague. She had no idea why, but she shrugged it off and continued to focus on her studies as she had promised herself she would. She _would_ give this a real chance. She owed it to Christina. She allowed herself the luxury of singing in a local church choir, to fill the too-long hours in between classes and singing lessons. She had a deep and abiding love for church music, and she allowed herself that indulgence. It was the only place where she allowed herself to simply be. She spent time with her new friends but she also held herself apart, never allowing them to get too close.

She was passing through the corridor that held the rehearsal rooms one rainy day when she heard Miss Calder's voice ringing out from a nearby room, illustrating to some student how she would like a certain phrase to be performed. Helena paused to listen. She had an endless fascination with Miss Calder, who was a highly trained singer and actress and she somehow made every action seem natural and graceful. Her voice was, quite honestly, a delight. The piece of music was Andrew Lloyd Webber's 'Pie Jesu,' a piece that Helena had performed in church the previous week with another lady from her choir. The other singer wasn't terribly good, and it had been a disappointment to Helena to sing such a beautiful piece with an inferior voice attempting harmony with hers. Then a new voice began, singing the section Miss Calder had just demonstrated, and Helena knew that this voice – this, she could harmonise with, more than happily. It was a different type of voice to hers, lighter but more pure, less belting but more soaring. It was as if light itself had been given voice. As she listened to the words, she realised that this voice must belong – _could_ belong to no-one but Myka Bering. There were plenty of female singers here, but that voice, that timbre – it was unmistakeable to Helena somehow. Helena felt her heart still for a moment, at the purity of the song, but was brought back to herself by the distant slamming of a door. She told herself she was simply walking back to her room, but she knew that she was fleeing that voice. It followed her anyway.

And then it was Christmas, all of a sudden. Helena had endured the deathly silent dorm rooms over Thanksgiving, and had anticipated spending another lonely holiday as she watched her friends leave, eager to go home, one by one. She sang at the carol service on Christmas Eve, and she had noticed Myka there, watching her, open mouthed, almost panicking, and then rushing out as she and the choir finished their rendition of "O' Holy Night." She was, quite honestly, baffled at what she could have done to make the girl react like that. And then she encountered Myka again a few days later, trying to sneak back in to her room as quietly as possible. Helena was bored and lonely, and not looking forward to spending yet more time alone, thinking about her lost family while everyone else spent time with theirs. She was lost in thought when she saw Myka, and contemplated briefly what to say, before settling for "Merry Christmas, Myka." She had thought to slip by quietly – the girl clearly didn't want to spend time with her – but the effect of her words on Myka was electrifying. She jumped, spilling coffee and keys and phone to the floor. And when she turned – dear _God_ , her face! It was swollen, grotesquely so, and displayed most of the colours of the rainbow. Helena wasn't sure what she said to the girl, but Myka was following her obediently, all of a sudden, and she busied herself in looking after the injured girl. She made coffee, because Myka was shivering, and because she assumed that Myka's plan had been to drink, rather than wear, the coffee she'd been carrying when Helena startled her. She gave her some painkillers that she had left over from a back injury she'd sustained in a dance class – a bit naughty, really, but no-one need know about it. Then she pressed an ice pack to the visibly wilting girl's face, stifling a gasp when Myka rested her head on Helena's shoulder, leaning into her. Helena studied her carefully for a moment, seeing that she was more than half asleep already, and drew them both down onto the narrow bed, still holding the ice to Myka's cheek. After a while, steady breaths told Helena that Myka was asleep, and so she discarded the ice pack and pulled a blanket over them both, switching off the lamp. She kissed Myka's injured cheek impulsively, gently, before Myka's soft breaths lulled her to sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

_Charles' face was pulped, mashed, and Helena was screaming at the boy to leave him alone, stop hitting him, but he wouldn't. He was going to kill him! She was screaming, crying hysterically, and suddenly a tall boy with long features was pulling Charles' attacker away, and she finally had the presence of mind to call an ambulance. Charles wouldn't stay in hospital though, and insisted on going home. They said that's when he sustained the brain damage – the pressure inside his head was too great. If he'd been monitored, they would have known, but he wasn't. When she realised how far gone he was, it was too late. He was never the same. Always had the same smile, but he was never quite – present. And so when she had left Christina with him to go on a night out, she thought the accident had been her fault – that Charles had caused the gas explosion. It wasn't his fault, as it turned out, but she still felt the responsibility, the weight of it, down to her bones. She sobbed, the mashed face of her brother being replaced with the adorable face of her baby daughter, surrounded by flames._

She was crying in her sleep again. She wiped her eyes briskly, and took a moment to allow herself to wake. Why did she always have to remember it so clearly? The night she was assaulted, the night Charles was almost killed, and the night she had first met the father of her daughter. What would have been the worst night of her life, had the explosion never occurred. She sighed, running a hand through her hair, and sat up. She was startled for a moment to hear soft noises next to her as Myka turned over. Then she remembered her bruised face, and it became clear why she'd dreamed of that particular night. Myka's face was a bloody _mess_. God, who would do this to her? She was so harmless, so withdrawn – how could she possibly be the focus of so much violence? Helena was beginning to understand why Myka behaved as she did, however, and her heart ached for the young woman. She decided to call Dr McPherson to see if he was in New York. The man split his practice at different times of the year between New York and London, so if she was lucky she might catch him. She made the call and, when he said he would come that afternoon, Helena went to take a shower.

When she returned to the room, she was greeted by the sight of a drunk-looking Myka, who had clearly been trying to sit up, and had just as clearly failed to do so. The young woman tried to escape, muttering thanks and apologies, but since she was clearly trying very hard not to throw up all over the bed, Helena channelled one of the stricter nuns from her schooldays and scolded Myka until she shrank back under the covers. It was all very amusing, but Helena didn't dare break the frown in case Myka really did try to flee and did herself a mischief. She was stunned when Myka asked her why she was helping, with genuine confusion in her eyes. Helena explained softly that Myka was as deserving of help as anyone else. But the puzzlement in her green eyes was captivating, and Helena knew that she was staring. She was relieved to be interrupted by a knock at the outer door.

Dr McPherson confirmed that Myka did have a concussion but with observation and rest she would be fine. Helena was unaccountably relieved. She just didn't want a repeat of what had happened to Charles; that was all. She tried not to read too much into it.

The days that followed were wonderful for Helena. She had been starved for company and to have someone like Myka there, who could talk about all manner of subjects with encyclopaedic knowledge and a sharp mind – it was a balm to Helena's soul. She enjoyed the small tasks of looking after Myka too – cooking meals, making sure she had her pills on time, reading to her, and she especially enjoyed the comfort of Myka's body next to her when she was asleep. She was afraid to admit how much it meant to her. She couldn't resist running her fingers through Myka's hair once she was sure she was asleep. Her hair was beautiful, and the woman herself more so. Still, Helena held herself back. She didn't want to care for anyone. It hurt too much. She was concerned that it might be too late, however, when they took a walk outside and Myka fell asleep on her shoulder. She couldn't keep her eyes away from Myka's face, all tension gone from her muscles as she slept. She was so beautiful, and the wave of feeling, the _need_ to protect this woman, almost knocked Helena off her feet. Myka's eyes opened just then, with Helena's face an inch from her own, and mumbled an apology about drooling on her, but try as she might, Helena couldn't look away. Just one inch, and their lips would meet. Breathing, which had previously been effortless, suddenly seemed impossible. She could have howled when Myka blushed and moved away.

When they returned to the room, their easy camaraderie replaced with a nervous tension, Myka fell into bed, obviously exhausted, and only stirred briefly to try to have some soup that Helena pressed upon her. She fell asleep sitting up, the cup tilting in her hands before Helena rescued it and gently encouraged Myka to lie down. She pulled the covers over Myka's prone form, and tried to concentrate on a book, but she knew she was spending more time watching Myka's breathing than considering the words on the page. She finally gave up, went to the bathroom and showered, just to have some time alone with her thoughts – most of which were of Myka. What if she let herself care for someone again, and then lost them? She was here to get away from that pain, not to encourage it to happen again. Best to forget about it, and be friends. To love was to hurt, and she was already wounded beyond comprehension. She couldn't help herself, later that night, though. Quiet sobs escaped her, feelings that she didn't want filled her, and so she clung to Myka and cried herself to sleep.

Myka's shiver woke her, and Helena realised that she was still clinging to her, as if Myka was her tether to the world. She muttered an apology about being cold, and was relieved when Myka fled to the bathroom. She was embarrassed but she couldn't help but revel in the memory of being pressed so close to Myka, feeling the length of her against her own body that had gone without contact for such a long time...since Christina had died, and she had withdrawn from the world. She took a deep breath, gathered herself and tried to get lost in the book she'd been reading the night before.

When Myka returned from the bathroom, she announced that she could be on her way now, since she was better, and the relief on her face cut Helena to the bone. She couldn't stop herself, however, from practically begging Myka to spend some more time with her, until the holidays were over. Myka surprised her by saying that she would gladly spend all of her time with Helena. Thoroughly confused, Helena was nonetheless warmed by Myka's offer, and grateful when they did spend the rest of the holiday together. Over the next few days, Myka opened up to Helena, slowly, becoming less defensive, and her posture began to change as she seemed to accept that Helena really _did_ enjoy her company. She was taller, suddenly, brighter and even more beautiful. Helena's throat tightened each time Myka laughed. She knew that she had to get a hold of herself, but it was so hard not to love this beautiful, more open version of Myka Bering. She was stunning, intelligent, fascinating, and utterly unaware of those facts, which made her all the more attractive.

The last night that Myka stayed, Helena was feeling lost. She missed her daughter, and she missed her friends from home. Myka was wonderful, and her being here was wonderful, but she couldn't replace an entire family, an entire life – a child. She was apparently completely oblivious to how Helena was feeling, and she drifted off quickly to sleep while Helena lay awake, wondering what her life would have been like if Christina hadn't died. She wept, softly, and buried her face in the back of Myka's neck, holding on for dear life. When she woke the next morning, neither she nor Myka had moved, and her eyes were drawn to the perfect ear, the perfect jaw, the smooth neck in front of her. She kissed them without thought, still more than half asleep, and was horrified when Myka gasped sharply.

She froze, caught between embarrassment and dread at how Myka would react. She tried to apologise, appalled at her own behaviour, and Myka, bizarrely, tried to comfort her. When she asked why Helena had kissed her, Helena just said she'd been having a dream, and sobbed out a horrified laugh when Myka made a joke about it, waggling her eyebrows like Pete did when he was telling a dirty joke. Helena was incredibly relieved, to the point that when Myka said something about her being a terrible flirt, she actually kissed Myka on the lips, briefly. She took a few seconds to enjoy the stunned look on Myka's face before she retreated to the bathroom to regroup. She used up her entire vocabulary of swearwords, talking to herself in the mirror before getting up the courage to return to her room.

When she opened the door, Myka was gone. Helena sank down into the empty chair, and noticed the post-it note stuck to a book, thanking her. She had taken it too far, she knew. She had always had a weakness for flirting, teasing, and Myka brought it out in her, with her stammers and blushes. Helena didn't cry, but simply sighed at her own stupidity, and turned her mind to a book on the Alexander technique that Miss Calder had drawn her attention to, hoping that she could forget this whole mess for a while.


	3. Chapter 3

A few hours later, there was a knock at the outer door, and when she answered, it was UPS, delivering the phone she had ordered surreptitiously a few days before to replace the one that Myka had drowned in coffee. She felt responsible for the incident, since she'd startled Myka, and over the holiday had come to crave Myka's smiles. She opened the box, programmed her number in to the phone and brought it round to the dorm where she'd met Myka just after Christmas. She was shaking when she knocked on the door, and one of Myka's roommates let her in. She steeled herself, and faced Myka, whose face broke into a smile when she opened the door. Myka wasn't going to accept the phone, so she made sure to leave quickly so that she couldn't give it back. Myka's smile as Helena departed was more than worth the cost of the phone.

Helena tried to stay away, she really did. But she was drawn to Myka in a way that she couldn't comprehend, let alone explain, and the feeling, whatever it was, appeared to be mutual. The night she told Myka and Steve about Christina was one of the most difficult and most wonderful nights of her life. They surrounded her, held her and made her feel part of a family again, even if it was for a brief time. And when Myka kissed her and held her close that night, she felt something inside of her melt away, a wall that she didn't know was there. And then there was Wicked. And Myka's bloody golden curls. Helena got the part of Elphaba and worked at it, made it her own. She tried hard to ignore the feelings that singing with Myka elicited in her. But when Leena had a quiet word with Myka during one of the rehearsals, and Myka returned to the stage, her eyes ablaze with a passion that terrified Helena, she was lost and she knew it. She almost forgot her lines, and that _never_ happened. When Myka kissed her in the elevator, she couldn't resist kissing back. It was only a moment, but the way it felt...Myka was inexperienced, yes, but her passion more than made up for that. If they hadn't been in an elevator, Helena wouldn't have been able to stop herself from taking things further. When Myka pulled her hair – God, her knees buckled. No-one had ever affected Helena as Myka did. Once they were back in her dorm, however, and Steve and Pete were doing their usual good-natured bickering, reality set back in. She didn't want to start something with Myka that might make her feel too much. It took her the whole evening to talk herself out of this...whatever it was. This wasn't how this was supposed to go. She wanted oblivion, freedom from pain. She saw how much it hurt Myka when she rejected her, but she was so afraid to let herself feel anything again. Her traitorous feelings led to her begging Myka to stay, however, and Helena clutched her, held her fiercely as she slept, because she was afraid that she might lose what they had, their friendship, through her actions. And she was terrified too that she no longer wanted to leave the world and her pain behind. Myka was making her want to stay, and Helena had clung to the idea of ending her pain for so long that she didn't know how to let it go.

For a time, she did lose Myka. Myka withdrew, polite and smiling as ever, but ever so slightly distant. She no longer dropped by in the evening with a book for Helena to read, didn't come along to Steve's room when he invited them to his room for takeout. Steve asked Helena why, but she just shook her head, not wanting to put any of it into words. She deserved this, she knew. But it still hurt. So she retreated into her icy calm of before. She endured as Myka actually ran away in mid-rehearsal because of her. She knew it was her fault, even though Myka denied it. So she held herself apart. Until the party.

She was standing in a corner, nursing the same drink she'd had for an hour, only there because Steve had _begged_ her to go, and she watched as Myka danced with a blond guy from the chorus. He was touching her, putting his hands on her, and Myka _let_ him. Helena knew she had no right to be jealous, but when Myka went off with him she felt like her heart was being torn out. She was trying to hold herself together, regain her composure so that she could say goodnight to Steve and Pete and Claudia without weeping, when Steve came over and told her what Claudia had seen. Walter Sykes, the blond man, had drugged Myka. Her mind went blank. Steve said afterwards that she had kicked the shit out of Sykes, but she couldn't remember, couldn't remember anything but seeing him touch Myka, her Myka, taking advantage of her. Memories of her own assault and Charles' face and Christina had overwhelmed her. When she came back to herself she was carrying Myka, and Steve and Pete were supporting her, helping her get Myka into bed. She collapsed beside Myka and the guys left. She didn't sleep that night, just held her drugged friend, protecting her until she woke.

The next day was a nightmare. Having to tell Myka what had happened, watching her throw up, retching violently at the thought of being violated like that, and then having to deal with the police again – it was a horrific reminder of what she had been through even before her life had been truly shattered. But Myka was there, she was _really_ there, and she didn't seem to have any inclination at all to leave Helena's side. Myka's confession of what her father had done to her hit Helena like an arrow to the chest. What she had gone through...it was inconceivable to Helena that someone would want to hurt this beautiful creature so badly. They slept tangled together and Helena was so relieved to have Myka back that she didn't even spend any time wondering what this might mean for them. They remained close, closer than friends but not enough to be lovers, until the last night of performances. Myka was aglow, staggeringly beautiful, and her voice – God, it burned at Helena's insides.

She remembered that night vividly. The last show had been wonderful, and while she knew that her own performance had surpassed anything she'd done before, Myka had set the stage ablaze. Her voice, her eyes, they had lit a fire in Helena that she didn't think she could ever put out, and if she was honest with herself, she didn't want to. They danced to the song that Claudia had put on, and the unfamiliar words caught at Helena's heart. She was pressed against Myka, holding on for dear life, and the lyrics of the song made her smile and grimace at once.

 _And I'd give up forever to touch you, cos I know that you feel me somehow_

 _You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be and I don't want to go home right now_

Helena didn't recognise the song, but something in her pulled, wrenched as she listened. The song itself, the changing time signatures, the different sections, fractured and stuck together but somehow making a more beautiful and complete whole – it was an analogy for the relationship that she and Myka had formed in these last intense months together. She looked up at Myka, the woman who had transformed her life so completely, and realised that this was it – the time to decide. To live, or not. She was teetering on the precipice, staring at Myka, but one part of her still looked back to what she had promised herself, an end to her pain. But when Myka kissed her and told her she was beautiful, she tensed, and then relaxed. To say no to Myka in that moment was an impossibility. She knew now that it was love, and she gave in to it and kissed Myka in front of everyone, heedless of the catcalls and cheers. In that moment, she was embracing Myka, but for the first time she was also embracing life, instead of rejecting it. She put her whole heart into the kiss and when they broke apart, and Myka looked at her with that crooked smile and those ridiculous, tumbling curls of gold, Helena smiled the first true smile she could remember since her daughter had died.

Their first night together was intense and incredible, both the most amazing sex she had ever had (Myka was an extremely fast learner) and one of the most profound experiences of her life so far. Myka was shy at first, but soon they moved together with an ease that Helena had never experienced before with anyone. The intensity of her feelings frightened her, but there was no turning back once she had let herself have this.


	4. Chapter 4

Since Helena gave in, allowed Myka in, her life was ablaze with colour. The pain that tattooed her vision wasn't gone, could never be truly gone, but being with Myka made it seem bearable. The nights when she woke up crying, Myka held her and comforted her. She didn't have to pretend to be okay, but sometimes, to her surprise, she actually was. Thoughts of giving up, of ending her torment, happened less and less, until she was actually enjoying life, allowing herself to experience joy. She felt guilty, but as Myka reminded her often, Christina would have wanted her to be happy. Christina was young when she died, yes, but she already had a generous nature, and she had always been the one person with whom Helena felt loved. She would want happiness for her mother.

There was a lot of happiness to go around. At the end of the year she moved in to her new apartment and gave Myka a key. That summer was wonderful. Myka was working at her coffee shop, and Helena took great pleasure in dropping by, watching her frown as she concentrated on making sure each order was perfect, her hair tied back with just a few curls escaping. She took it all so seriously, and it delighted Helena to see Myka tamping down the coffee just so, delicately heating the milk to just the right temperature, separating the foam from the hot milk. She could make a cappuccino look like a work of art. Myka teased Helena incessantly about finding it sexy when she made coffee, but Helena didn't mind because it usually ended up with them gasping together in various places in the apartment. Sometimes she made Myka keep her apron on.

Soon enough, they were starting their second year together at Juilliard. Helena didn't quite know what to do with it all, the joy she that filled her every day of her new life. They were working extremely hard, all of them, but it was the kind of work that felt like play. They spent most of their waking hours together, she and Myka and Steve and Pete and Claudia, and sometimes Abigail and Leena too. They had a regular karaoke night at a nearby bar, and both she and Myka were regularly propositioned by people who had heard them sing. They always refused politely, grinning at one another. Helena couldn't imagine feeling happier.

The day that Myka broke her leg, Helena met with David, the producer who had approached her after the last performance of Wicked. He was charming and complimentary, and he hinted at possibilities that thrilled Helena – headlining a new show on Broadway, which was practically unheard of for an unknown like her, and even television. He was a producer with serious clout, so she knew that the things he was mentioning were real possibilities. She had left the lunch feeling like she was floating on air. But when she switched on her phone and listened to her messages, Steve's frantic words almost stopped her heart. She hailed a cab and threw money at the driver as they drew up in front of the hospital, breaking into a run as soon as she had closed the door behind her. She wondered what she must look like to the people she passed. She was in the clothes Myka had picked out for her to wear to meet David, a stylish fitted dress and heels. But her hair was wild from her pulling at it and running her hands through it feverishly. She didn't even want to know what her face looked like. She didn't want to know how it looked to feel this way.

Steve introduced her to the doctor as Myka's partner, and the man said the words that shattered her world, her new-found happiness, into tiny pieces. Cancer.

Her knees had actually given out, and Steve, white-faced, had half-dragged her to a chair. She was incoherent with fear. The happiness she had found with Myka was being threatened by something neither of them could control. She felt like she could burst, the pressure inside her was so great. The doctor explained softly what had happened, and the next steps. Everything was uncertain, and he mentioned a possible genetic reason for the cancer, but said it would take time to investigate. Steve saw the look in her eyes, the fear that was eating her alive, and asked the doctor if they could talk about the rest of it later. He brought her to Myka's room, and seeing her so pale and still stole the breath from Helena's lungs.

It was a blight on their happiness. The chemotherapy and the vomiting, the hair loss, the pain. Watching Myka go through it almost broke Helena. She had to hold herself together for Myka, and she did, but she hadn't felt so close to the edge, not since she'd been in hospital after Christina's death. The thought of losing Myka was so terrifying that Helena sometimes had to leave the apartment, pretending she had to pick something up from the supermarket or the drugstore, just so she could breathe, could cry for a moment without Myka having to see and worry. And there was something else, something that she couldn't quite put her finger on, that was wrong with Myka. Not physically, but emotionally. Something between them. There were small looks that Helena couldn't interpret, and sometimes when Myka smiled, there was something about her eyes that unsettled Helena.

It became clear, after her second meeting with David. Myka hurt Helena more than she thought was possible. She understood afterwards, of course, that Myka had said...those things to her because Nate had just told her about the genetic tests and the probabilities involved. It was just incredibly bad luck that she'd been so excited, filled with triumph about the possibility of headlining a Broadway show. When she opened the door, stepped inside, chattering about the things he'd said, she was introduced to a version of Myka she'd never met before. She was like a wild animal, spitting hatred at Helena. She remembered slapping Myka, and running...and then nothing. She woke in a hotel room nearby, accompanied by an attractive but unpleasant man who apparently wanted a repeat performance of whatever they'd done the night before. She told him no, several times, and when he persisted, she kicked him in the crotch, hard, and left. He called her all sorts of horrific names as she was leaving, but she was numb to it all. She returned to the apartment in a trance, and Myka was gone. Her clothes, her books – gone.

Helena sank into a stupor that lasted several weeks. She supposed that she must have eaten during that time, must have slept, must have washed, but she didn't recall much beyond looking out the window at the city. It wasn't the same as losing Christina, because Christina was a part of her, but Myka had helped her heal, at least partially, from that loss. Losing her was unlike that pain, and like it at the same time. Because they _had_ become a part of each other, somehow, even in the relatively short time they'd known one another. Steve, Claudia, Pete – they all tried to reach her, but she was lost in her own mind, in her pain.

Her nightmares had a new chapter now. Myka's sneering face, her rage, her hatred, and the words she had spat at Helena.

 _"Look at you, standing there looking so fucking perfect. I bet you're loving this. You get to be the perfect girlfriend who nurses poor Myka through her cancer. You get to be the one who has a career, and I'm sitting here, maybe dying, and you come flouncing in here to tell me that you're headlining a Broadway show? Are you fucking kidding me?_

 _I don't need you clinging to me so you can look good for the outside world. I can do this myself. Why don't you just go and have your career and your perfect life. We both know you're not with me because you love me. You feel sorry for me, poor Myka with the abusive dad and the cancer. Well, I'm giving you permission to go. You don't have to stay. You're only here to make yourself feel better, and I don't fucking need you. You just want to save me because you couldn't save your precious daughter."_

She thought a lot in those early days about ending it all, letting the pain end, but some spark in her wanted to live. The spark that Myka had reawakened in her. She didn't care to dwell on that irony. Eventually she emerged from her daze and took the pain, shoved it down, and tried to move on. She tried to stay in touch with Steve and Claudia and Pete and the others, but as inevitably happens in any break up, they had to choose sides. Myka lived with them at the beginning, so she automatically won their time and attention. Helena tried meeting with each of them a few times, but it felt wrong, like they were meeting clandestinely, behind Myka's back. It was too hard. She stayed in touch with Steve by email, eventually, and Claudia a little, but it wasn't the same. Myka had broken her heart and stolen her new family in one fell swoop. The new show helped to distract her from everything that was missing, everything that was so very wrong without Myka by her side. David wanted her to be a star, and was willing to take the steps to do that. And he wanted her, and it was very easy to give in to that, to try to feel something, to feel wanted, when she had been so soundly rejected by the woman she loved. She worked hard, and developed and honed her skills. She was an excellent performer, she knew, and she was able to push her nervous energy into her work. She grew bored of David, eventually, and pushed him gently back into the arms of his wife. There were a succession of lovers, and a succession of shows, but none of them really took away the hollowness inside her. Apart from David, who she had liked but definitely didn't love, they were all one-night stands. And never women, not after the first one. She reminded Helena too much of Myka, and she had cried afterwards, in the nameless woman's arms. That could never happen again. She couldn't seem to sustain any sort of relationship and the truth was that she didn't want to. Whenever she saw a look from anyone that was softer than lust, saw any hint of caring, she backed away. She couldn't get over the betrayal. Myka had looked at her that way, had said she loved Helena, and then she had told her to go, told her she was clinging, that she wasn't needed. The idea of ever hearing that again made it impossible for Helena to allow herself to care for anyone.

She was peripherally aware that Myka was making a name for herself quietly, was garnering praise and success in a variety of shows, and suddenly it became too much. She decided it was time to move, and she fled to London. She had been there for six months, performing in Chicago on the West End, living in a nondescript apartment and withdrawing into herself when she wasn't working. It was when she arrived in London that she decided to speak to a mental health professional. It wasn't rational to run away to another country because your ex was doing well in the same field as you. The therapy helped her understand Myka's behaviour a bit better, but she couldn't seem to get out from under it, away from the pain. She knew she was only surviving, that she was waiting for something to change, for her heart to return to her. It was only a few hours before she was due at the theatre when Nate called to tell her that there was a spot on Myka's latest scan. She'd kept in touch with him, and he had briefly been one of her conquests, rather inappropriately, but he was nice enough to keep her in the loop concerning Myka's health. He wasn't supposed to but she had exploited the man's apparent weak spot for her and he had given in. The fact that she was still paying Myka's medical bills had probably helped to persuade him of her good intentions.

She got on a flight immediately, sending an email to her solicitor asking her to arrange a moving firm to ship Helena's belongings at a later date. She would have to deal with the implications of breaking her contract with the theatre company when things settled. She didn't feel too bad, however. Her understudy was very capable and deserved a chance at headlining a show. Helena arrived in New York just as Myka was going into surgery, and was by her side when she began to come round from the anaesthesia. The sight of her in that bed broke Helena's heart all over again. She was so pale, so thin. Five years had passed, and there was a chasm of pain between them, but Helena couldn't leave Myka like this. She loved her too much, even after all this time. She hated it, hated herself for coming back after everything, but she couldn't stay away. She was there when Myka woke, and she held her when she sobbed as she realised Helena was there. A large part of her didn't want to be here, didn't want to feel this, but she was helpless where Myka Bering was concerned, it seemed. She gave in to the inevitable. She cared for the woman she loved, and she knew that Myka hated it, hated being weak, but Myka made good on the promise she'd made in the hospital, and she tried to be better for Helena, swallowed her automatic objections to receiving help. She worked hard at her therapy, and was loving and tender and everything that Helena _didn't_ want her to be. Because this time, it was Helena who was terrified. She had lost Myka once, and it had almost ruined her. She had lost herself for a long time. She didn't want to get used to this love, this happiness, and have the ground disappear from beneath her feet again because of Myka's whims.

(That was unfair, she knew. What Myka did to her was borne of pain and fear, not a whim. She understood perfectly well why she'd done what she did. She had endured months and months of therapy herself to get to the point where she could understand it. But somehow she couldn't quite get over it, and the fact that Myka had a serious condition that might end in her death, her leaving Helena? That didn't bloody help either. The gremlins continued to run around in her brain, shouting "What if, what if?")

The first time she cheated on Myka, she had an excuse, she told herself. She was still reeling from the six month scan, the fact that Myka was cancer-free, after months of fear building inside her, fear that she hid from Myka. She threw herself into her work and she loved the show, Jesus Christ Superstar. But she was still terrified. What if Myka left her? What if she never again got to wake up with her face buried in Myka's neck, in Myka's mane of curls? She worked because she didn't want to think, and she got shit-faced drunk and fucked Sam Martino, who played Jesus, because she didn't want to feel it all anymore. The next time it happened she didn't have an excuse. She just wanted not to feel it, any of it. It didn't happen often, but it was always when the fear had paralysed her. She felt an overwhelming need to lose herself, and sometimes alcohol did that for her, but sometimes it wasn't enough on its own, and she found herself in some stranger's bed. Something was broken inside her and she didn't know how to fix it.

The last time it happened was when she went to see Nate, not long before she decided to propose to Myka. (It was another sign of how lost, how screwed up she was, that she thought it was a good idea to propose to Myka while still doing what she was doing.) Nate had become a confidante of sorts, following their ill-advised liaison. But here she was, doing it again, using him so she didn't have to feel anything or think about losing Myka. But it _was_ the last time. She'd suddenly seen what she was doing for what it really was, and what it would do to Myka, and had decided to see a therapist again. The therapist prescribed anti-anxiety medication and she was having frequent appointments during which she tried to untangle her thoughts and feelings, to understand why she was doing these crazy things with people she didn't even like, never mind love. The therapist said that the answer to that question, or at least part of it, was that Helena was trying to control something, because she was so scared of losing Myka to something she couldn't control. Helena was trying to decide how to tell Myka. She didn't want to hurt her, but she knew that she already had – it was just that Myka didn't know it yet. The effect of what Helena had done was just paused, trapped in time until Helena owned up to it. Helena was trying to get up the strength and courage to tell Myka, knowing that it would hurt her so very badly. She hoped that Myka would understand and forgive her, but she was not hopeful. She wasn't sure it was forgivable. And then she realised that she had missed her period for the second month in a row. She panicked, and after the rehearsal for their new television show, she ran off and took several pregnancy tests in the privacy of a hastily booked hotel room.

So here they were. She was pregnant. She had slept with other people, after she and Myka had returned to one another, after the cancer, after every wonderful and horrible thing they'd been through, and she was pregnant. And she didn't even know for sure who the father was. She had betrayed Myka in the worst possible way. She didn't know who was more shocked by all of this, her or Myka. Her words were like a bomb exploding in their apartment, blasting through their home. Myka's face was ashen as she took in the implications of what Helena had said. Her eyes fluttered shut for a moment as she tried to contain the pain Helena knew she must be feeling. The pain Helena had caused.


	5. Chapter 5

Myka's face was contorted in pain, her mind a blank, as she tried to absorb the bombshell Helena had dropped in their living room. She was pregnant. And since, as far as Myka knew, she didn't have some sort of magical way to get women pregnant, that meant that the only explanation was that Helena had cheated on her, with a guy. It had never occurred to her that Helena would ever cheat on her. She knew Helena wasn't just attracted to women, she had dated men before - she'd had a baby, for Christ's sake. The fact that she'd cheated with a guy wasn't any more of a betrayal, it was just a bit of a shock to Myka's system. She could look at another woman and compare herself, maybe try to understand what it was that Helena saw in them, but it was a bit more difficult to compare herself to a guy. She knew that Helena loved her, Myka had battled hard with herself for that knowledge, for that realisation. Why would she do this? Myka had worked hard at her therapy, and one of the things that Abigail had asked her to do was to try to work through things logically before reacting. So she tried to ignore the fact that she felt like the bottom had just fallen out of her entire world, and took a deep breath, and then another, trying to calm herself before speaking. It took a few more deep breaths before she was able to get any words out.

"When did you find out? And who is the father?" Her voice was as expressionless as her face.

Helena looked at her, and the guilt and devastation on her face was clear. Myka tried not to feel anything, and just listened to what Helena had to say before making any decisions. Helena dropped her gaze to her hands and began to explain.

"I found out today. And as to the father, I don't honestly know, Myka. I have been out of control for some time, and as a result I recently went back to therapy. The things I've been doing – I knew they were wrong, but I couldn't stop. I have been so very afraid that you would leave me, either because you decided for me again that we should be apart, or because you got sick. I think I have been sick too, for a while. The therapy and the pills have been helping, and I stopped doing...what I was doing a couple of months ago. But I missed my period again, and it became clear that I had to talk to you about this. Which I _was_ going to, I promise you, even before I found out." She paused for a moment, before taking a deep breath and continuing. "I can't have an abortion. I know you know me well enough to know that I couldn't, not after Christina." Myka gave her a short nod, her expression closed and unreadable.

"There are two people who I think might be the father. Do you want to know their names?" Myka nodded, face drawn and grim. Two?

"Nate. Dr Boone." Myka shook her head, dropped it into her hands.

"Sam Martino." Myka looked up in astonishment.

"The guy who played Jesus?"

Helena nodded. "I think I should be clear, though, Myka. That they were not the only ones. There were others. Since I left to go on tour."

Myka stood up. She suddenly had to get out of there. Tears were stinging her eyes, blinding her. She thought she might vomit.

"I'm going out for a while, Helena. This is not me leaving you." _Not yet._ "I just need some time to think. Please, don't do anything stupid. I'll be back in a while." Helena nodded again, clearly trying not to let her tears escape.

Myka pulled on some shoes and grabbed her keys from the bowl by the door.

"Are you going to be okay?" she asked, without turning around.

Helena swallowed loudly, and said, "Yes. I'll be here whenever you come home." The word 'home' hung in the air between them, and Myka left the apartment. She heard Helena begin to sob as the door closed behind her.

She drove to Steve's apartment, half abandoning the car when she got there. He opened the door and his usually serene face was shocked when he took in her wild eyes and tear-streaked face.

"Myka, what's wrong?"

She was barely able to explain, sobs choking her. Her chest was physically hurting. She had never, not in her worst nightmares, imagined that Helena would betray her like this. Helena, who had come back to her even after what had happened between them, who had nursed her, made love to her, carried her through one of the most difficult times in her life, had been screwing around behind her back for well over a year with who knew how many men, and had gotten herself pregnant. And they were supposed to be getting married. Myka stared down at the ring on her finger, the delicate diamond, the white gold glistening coldly.

Steve was appalled, she could tell. He had never seen it coming either. It made Myka feel better, for some reason, that she wasn't the only one to be blindsided by what Helena had done.

Pete was at Steve's. It was their bro night, as they called it, and Myka offered to go, but Steve told her to stop being an idiot. They sat with her on the floor, surrounded her and held her as she sobbed her heart out. Steve made one of his weird herbal teas and the hot liquid melted some of the lump in her throat. She explained what had happened, that it wasn't an affair, that it was anonymous sex with mostly anonymous men, and Steve's expression changed to a more thoughtful one.

"That doesn't really make sense. Does Helena strike you as the kind of person who would have sex with someone without feelings? It took like months of you two dancing around each other before you even kissed. I think she must have been really fucked up to do this, Myka. It doesn't make sense."

Myka stared at him for a minute. She sort of got what he was saying, but seriously? She hadn't ever thought Helena would have cheated on her, never mind that it would just be random sex. It didn't make it any better.

They talked until the early hours of the morning and although Pete didn't have much to say, he did make her think with the small things he said.

"Maybe she freaked because she was so scared of losing you, Mykes. I mean, what you did to her was pretty crazy too. I know you were trying to protect her and all in your own way, but you made her leave, and I think before that it was the only time she'd been happy since she lost her little girl, you know? And she – I mean, she lost her friends too. You were here, living with us, and you had cancer. She…we don't know where she's been or what she's been doing since then. But she came back to you even after all that, Mykes. I'm not saying I think it's okay, what she's done, but I think she's entitled to a little crazy. God knows we've all done things we're not proud of. And she said she stopped, right? I know it's not much, but it's something."

To say Myka was surprised would have been an understatement. She had expected Pete to commiserate with her and tell her to drop Helena like a hot potato.

"Are you saying you think I should stay with her, after this? After everything she's done?"

He shrugged.

"I'm not saying you should do anything, Myka. What you do now is up to you. I'm just saying, she came back to you. And whatever she's done, I know she loves you. You know that, right?"

Myka nodded and took a breath. Since Helena had told her, she hadn't actually considered the possibility of staying. People didn't stay when their partner cheated. A lot of the pain she was feeling was because she was losing Helena again.

Steve didn't say anything more, just shrugged and pulled her a little closer. She put her head on his shoulder and let the tears fall, wishing that today had never happened, that she could turn the clock back to when she was watching Helena sing about a baby grand and the love between a mother and her daughter.

The next morning, when Helena woke to the familiar warmth of Myka pressed against her back, arm draped over her belly, she thought she had dreamed the whole thing. She was so confused that she slipped out of bed silently, went to the bathroom and took another pregnancy test to check. But it was still positive, which meant that Myka had come back the night before, got into bed with Helena, and even snuggled up with her. When Myka woke up and behaved very much as she normally did, Helena had to ask herself if she had imagined telling Myka that she'd slept with other people – multiple others, in fact, and was bloody pregnant.

She hadn't. Myka made them both breakfast wordlessly, and sat down and told Helena that she was leaving. Not forever, necessarily, but for a while. She needed time away from Helena, to get her head straight, and the fact that they were spending time in rehearsals together was bad enough, already too much.

"No."

Myka looked at her incredulously.

"I'm sorry. What do you mean, no?"

Helena looked up at her then, her eyes filled with so much love, so much fear, that it made Myka's throat tighten.

"I love you, Myka. Whether that means anything or not to you after what I've done, it's still true. I love you. I never meant to do this. It is inexcusable. But what you did to me was also inexcusable. And I returned here, against my better judgement, to nurse you through cancer. I need you, Myka. If you aren't willing to stay, then I understand." She leaned forward and put her head in her hands, allowing her hair to fall over her face, to hide her from Myka's eyes. "Of course I understand, because I deserve it, I deserve for you to leave me and to never come back. You can go if you wish, and I will not blame you. But there will not be any more 'us' to come back to if you do. I cannot live through that again."

Myka's mouth was hanging open.

"Are you honestly saying that if I take some time away from you, you and I are done? Are you fucking kidding me? Because I thought I was being pretty damn decent about the whole thing. Considering that you fucked God knows how many people, I think I'm being pretty fucking okay about the whole thing."

Helena winced. Myka hardly ever swore. And her expression was uncomfortably similar to how she had looked on that day when she had said those things that had ripped Helena's heart out.

Helena took a deep breath before replying.

"You know, Myka, in almost any other circumstance I would agree with you. I did something awful and most people, most partners would walk out and never look back. If you are going to do that, then do it. You have every right to. And if I have to, I will bring this baby up on my own. But you don't get to abandon me now, when I'm pregnant, and come back later. I need you now. If you won't stay, I understand. I fully deserve that. But if you go now, it's for good. I made a colossal mistake, more than one, and I betrayed you, don't think I don't know that. But if you abandon me now after everything – after forcing me out of your life before – and pretend that you don't know why that would be the final nail in the coffin for me, then we really have nothing more to talk about. I'm not saying this is your fault, but this mess that I'm in, I need you to be in it with me. If you leave me again..." she trailed off, weeping helplessly.

Myka sat completely still for a moment. She didn't want to be here. She loved Helena, but what she had done to Myka was such an enormous betrayal that it was almost impossible to see past it. As she watched the woman she had loved for so long sobbing helplessly, however, she remembered the day in the hospital when Helena had returned to her and held her when she cried. Helena had looked at her in a way that she couldn't interpret at the time. But now Myka thought she knew what that look meant. It meant that she had been feeling exactly what Myka was feeling now. That day in the hospital, Helena hadn't wanted to be there, hadn't wanted to go back to the woman who had hurt her so badly – just as much as Myka, in this moment, did not want to be here. Nevertheless, she had still held Myka, supported her through her pain, despite everything Myka had done to her, everything that Myka had taken from her. It was that memory that drove Myka to stand, to go to Helena, to hold Helena tightly. Helena sobbed in her arms. Myka knew - she understood why Helena had done what she had. Or rather, she didn't understand why she'd chosen this precise method, but she at least understood why Helena had acted out. Her talk with Pete and Steve the night before had made her think it through, think why Helena would do something like that. Helena had lost her entire family, and found a new one here in New York, until Myka had pushed her away, made her lose everything. Helena coming back to her had seemed a miracle at the time, but it seemed that even miracles had their downside. And now she was pregnant. She was going to have a child. Myka didn't know how she felt about that, but she lost her resolve to leave as Helena clung to her. She couldn't leave. She was repulsed by the idea of Helena with anyone else, especially that smug prick Martino (the guy had tried to hit on her when she visited Helena, something which infuriated her ever more now that she realised he'd been sleeping with Helena) or the supremely eyebrowed doctor, but she couldn't pretend not to understand the impulse behind it. Jesus, they were going to need so much therapy.

"I'm not going anywhere, Hel." She kissed Helena's hair and held her until she calmed. She made Helena a cup of herbal tea and sat down again.

"I will stay, Helena, for now. But I can't promise anything. I will try, if you will, to repair our relationship. But I can't promise anything. Because this? What you've done – it's…I don't even think I have words." She shook her head. Helena didn't say anything, just sipped her tea and watched Myka with eyes that were swollen from crying.

"I can't sleep in our bed. I don't want to talk to you. I will stay in the guest room for now, and we will get a therapist, I guess, and try to work this out, if that's even possible. But for now, just give me space. I am here if you need me for anything with…the pregnancy, if you're ill or whatever. But I'm not going to the prenatal appointments, not unless and until I'm sure about this. Is that okay with you?" She fought hard to keep the sarcasm out of her voice at that last query.

Helena nodded cautiously, and then watched Myka go back and forth from their bedroom to the guest bedroom, moving clothes and other essentials. Myka stopped in the middle of the room, looking incredibly defeated, her shoulders slumped.

"Helena?" Her voice was quiet and broken.

"Yes, Myka?"

"You said – you said you love me. Is that true?"

"Yes." It was simple, that one word, but Helena said it with complete certainty.

Myka looked at her directly.

"Then how could you – why? Why would you do this?"

Myka watched Helena for a moment longer, and when there was no reply except for a pained look, said nothing more. She just went to bed, despite it still being morning. She was unable to think any more. She woke up at 9 in the evening and, when she remembered everything, only just made it to the bathroom before she threw up what little was left in her stomach. She stayed there, retching, for long moments. She cleaned herself up, washed her face and brushed her teeth automatically as she had so many times during her chemo, and as she walked back through the apartment Helena was standing in the doorway of their bedroom, a look of concern on her face, her arms wrapped around her body. Myka just looked at her for a moment in the dark, and went back into the guest room, trying not to slam the door behind her. Sleep was a long time coming.

 _Note_

 _I realise this chapter leaves them in a bad place, as did the last one, but they will find a way back to one another, I promise. Helena has done something horrible, but Myka is beginning to understand just what she did to Helena, too._


	6. Chapter 6

Rehearsals and recording took up a lot of their time for the following week or so. They didn't talk much, beyond those exchanges they needed to get them through the day, and they didn't share a bed, but they did decide during a short conversation that, as soon as they could, they would be going to see a couple's counsellor. They knew that with the pain and betrayal that was between them, it was more than they would be able to work out themselves – if it could be worked out at all. And Myka wasn't sure it could be, or that she even wanted it to, some days. Her emotions veered wildly between love, hatred and betrayal every time she saw Helena's face. Abigail started swearing like a sailor when Myka told her what happened. She had a surprisingly foul mouth at times – Myka thought she might have been spending too much time with Claudia. Myka had to hold the phone away from her ear after one particularly foul epithet made her wince. But Abigail gave Myka the name and number of a couple's counsellor, who she said was amazing. And so they went to see Dr Irene Frederic, an imposing black lady who appeared to be in her late fifties. She also appeared to be _from_ the late fifties, at least in terms of her style of dress. But she was impressive enough that they both reined in their rhetoric and were honest about how they really felt. They knew that they wanted to be together, but not how they could achieve that. And a baby was an added complication that neither of them had bargained on.

Dr Frederic looked at them enigmatically as they finished explaining why they were there.

"What you have been through – individually and as a couple – would have broken most people, most couples. Not to mention what you have done to one another in the process." Both women flushed in shame, very carefully not looking at each other or Dr Frederic.

"That you are here at all impresses me. And I am not easily impressed. So I will agree to take you on, with the proviso that you continue to be honest with one another and with me. Should either of you decide that you no longer want to try, you need to tell me immediately. I won't waste my time on people who are just going through the motions. But you both seem sincere, and given that Abigail sent you, I will help you if I can." She smiled at them both, an expression that was more frightening than reassuring, and told them to come back the next week for their first proper session.

As they walked out to the elevator, Myka whispered in Helena's ear, "Did you feel like you were getting told off by the head teacher?" Helena giggled, her first real laugh since she had seen the positive pregnancy test. Then they were both laughing, and Helena started to hope that things might be okay.

Their next week was too busy to allow them time to be awkward. They had a lot of scenes together for the pilot, and when they weren't in rehearsals, they were in a recording studio. There was to be an album, a show soundtrack, and most of the tracks were sung by one or other of them – or both. Despite everything, Myka could say, even years later, that recording with Helena during that time was one of the most incredible things she'd ever done. During their years apart, they had both grown and matured, musically speaking, and it was a pretty much constant thrill to hear Helena sing, even after they'd just spent a year on stage together. There were, however, a few times when Myka had to leave the studio to catch her breath when the lyrics hit too close to home. The love songs sometimes felt like a punch in the gut. She spent a fair bit of time outside, humming and doing various vocal exercises to loosen vocal cords tightened by pain. ( _"Never try to sing when you're upset," Vanessa Calder's words rang in her ears.)_ Still, the sound – the feeling of their voices harmonising together as they sang "Let me be your star" was one of the most moving things Myka had ever experienced. Helena's eyes held hers, and they soared together for long moments, lost in the music.

But music is not magic, and when the song was finished, Myka thudded back down to earth. Like she had during the Wicked rehearsal so many years before, she turned on her heel and ran from the look on Helena's face.

She met with Steve for lunch one afternoon that week, and he asked how things were going. The concern on his face almost started her crying. They were huddled together on a bench, eating burritos. She figured she could allow herself a few indulgences in the circumstances. (She hoped she didn't belch on one of the tracks later – chillies always did that to her.)

"It's surprisingly okay, actually. Because we're not really talking about what happened between us, there's a kind of artificial normality to all of this. We're working together, and she's so amazing when she acts or sings, it's easy to forget. We haven't started the couple's counselling properly, so I guess things might change a little then. And I think it will probably be a lot harder to ignore once the pregnancy starts to show."

Steve hesitated, and then asked, "And the pregnancy – did you guys ever talk about kids, before all this?"

She shook her head. "Honestly, it hadn't ever really occurred to me. I have always been focused on my career, and Helena lost Christina, so I didn't think that we would be talking about it for a while, if ever. Certainly not now, when our careers have taken off like this."

"And how do you feel about it? Have you thought about it since you found out?" Steve rubbed her shoulder, almost unconsciously, as he asked.

"I have. A lot, actually. I am a bit resentful, because I'm pretty sure that if I want to stay with Helena, I am going to have to be a parent, whether I like it or not. And I think I do want to stay. When she told me that if I left, we were over, I couldn't even think about being without her. But then I look at her, Steve, and I think about her with someone else, and I feel sick." She paused for a moment, taking a deep breath. "I can't see her wanting to give her child up for adoption, not after Christina. So I haven't really got a choice, I don't think. I hate that I don't have a choice. But I'm not actually sure that I dislike the idea, either. Helena as a mother – I think she'd be incredible. And as much as I hate to admit it, I think I am a little excited by the idea." She put her hands through her hair and sighed a little.

"I'm so angry, Steve. I'm so hurt. She's the love of my life, I know that. The idea of being without her now, after everything – it physically hurts. But I don't know how…" Her voice faltered. Her hand was in a fist against her chest. She took another breath, and continued, "But I didn't get a choice in all this, and the idea of her with anyone else makes me sick. I know my part in this, and I understand how we got here, I really think I do. But I don't have to like it." She was crying now, letting some of the tension out, and Steve put his arm around her shoulders and pulled her to him. She had to do a lot of vocal exercises before she could sing that afternoon.

Helena made an appointment to see an obstetrician the following week. She didn't talk about it with Myka. She did, however, ask Steve to come with her during an incredibly awkward phone call. Steve was monosyllabic, and she wasn't sure why. It became clear when she met him outside the doctor's office, however.

He looked at her coldly when she arrived, moving back when she went to kiss him on the cheek. She was running late for the appointment so she didn't have time to talk to him about it, she just eyed him uncertainly as they went inside. The tech did the sonogram briskly, but when they heard the heartbeat, Steve took her hand instinctively, tears in his eyes. But he let go almost straight away.

As they left the office, she stopped in front of him on the sidewalk, forcing him to stop.

"Steven. Please, talk to me."

He glared at her, but said nothing.

"Is this about Myka? About what I did?" She asked, her eyes filling.

"What do you think?" He bit off the words angrily.

"I didn't do it to hurt anyone, Steve. Please don't hate me."

He whipped his head round, staring at her.

"Hate you? I could never hate you, Helena." He rubbed at his eyes angrily. Helena was shocked to see that he was crying.

"Steve, I'm so sorry, I'm sorry. I didn't mean any of this. I messed everything up." She began to cry too, and he grabbed her, pulled her close, and they cried together in the middle of a busy street in Manhattan.

They went to a nearby coffee shop and sat, Steve twiddling with the wooden stirrer as he tried to find words.

"I feel so…helpless, looking at you two. I thought you were okay, when you came back and everything? But now…I guess I realised that we were at fault, too, for what happened. Because we tried to stay in touch, but we all had to help Myka, because of the cancer."

Helena smiled at him, trying to reassure him, but it was a pained smile.

"You see? Look at your face, Helena. Dammit. I knew…I knew you would be lost without her, that her making you go like that would…I knew you would be so hurt, so messed up, after what happened with Christina and your family. But I was trying to be there for Myka, and she was right here. I'm so sorry, Hel."

She reached over and took his hand, squeezing it soothingly.

"It's okay, Steve. It was an impossible situation for you. What Myka did, that's between us."

"I know. But I wish I'd been there for you. I feel responsible. If I'd been there, been a better friend, then maybe you wouldn't have done something this…fucking _stupid_!"

Helena winced. He was right, she knew. But Steve was so calm, it was awfully rare to hear it from him.

"I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say it like that." He rubbed his hand across his scalp distractedly, and then looked her in the eye.

"I just can't believe you did this. What were you thinking?"

"I wasn't thinking. That was the problem. I've been so scared, Steve. The last time Myka and I were together, things were so good, we were so happy – we had you all, our amazing friends. The cancer was awful, but I was happy to be there, to be looking after her. I love her so much. And then she said those things to me – that I was clinging to her, that I wasn't needed, that I was just trying to make up for losing Christina – and I lost it. I went a little crazy back then, and did a lot of things I'm not proud of. And then, we got back together, and we were so happy again…when we got the results back from her six month scan, it was all clear. And all I could think of was, what if it's not fine next time, and she gets sick again, and then she makes me leave? What if she says those things to me again? Because I'm not sure I could live through that again, Steve. And that's when it happened, the first time. I slept with that idiot Sam because I just needed to lose myself, to stop the fear."

He looked at her, sympathetically, but with an edge of pity.

"Did it work?"

She lowered her head. "For a while. It happened a few times with Sam, then there were some other guys, after the tour. And Myka's doctor, Nate." Steve hissed at that.

"Not your finest moment, Helena." He shook his head.

"Don't you think I know that? Jesus, Steve. I didn't mean for any of this to happen. I love her so much. I'm having therapy, I'm taking the medication, I'm trying to get through this. And now I am going to have a baby. And I don't even know if Myka's going to stay. I'm not sure I even think she _should_ stay after what I've done." She amended that to, "In fact, I'm quite certain she _shouldn't_ stay with me. I don't deserve it. And I can't quite fathom why she has stayed even this long."

"Well, you did kind of drop an ultimatum on her, Helena."

She flushed at that.

"I know it probably seems that way, Steve. But it wasn't. I was just, for once, trying to be open and honest. I couldn't handle her leaving now, not after what happened before, and then ever have a meaningful relationship afterwards. I would never trust her again, I would always think she's going to leave." She groaned as she realised what she was saying. "Just like she will probably never trust me again." She put her head in her hands.

"God, what are we even doing? There's no way she's going to stay with me. Why would she?"

Steve shook his head again, more gently this time.

"She will. I know she will. She would have gone already if she was going to leave. She loves you too Helena. But you have to make this right."

She leaned on the table, head in her hands.

"I'm going to try, Steve. But I don't know if anything will ever make up for this."

He sighed heavily, but squeezed her hand where it rested in his own.

"I'll be here, even if she isn't. But I think she will stay, Helena. I really do."


	7. Chapter 7

Helena cried a lot. She knew that all of this was her own fault, and as a result, she tried to hide her tears from Myka. She knew it was stupid, because with skin as fair as hers, she went blotchy and her nose puffed and went red when she cried. She managed not to cry on set, because she knew that the makeup team would kill her. But when she was at home, she couldn't help it. She couldn't concentrate on television or books or music – the usual things she used to distract herself from her own thoughts. So when they got home she went to the bathroom and hid under the shower for a while, letting the tears out. After a particularly trying day on set when she had been trying to balance on a baseball bat, of all things, while attempting to look graceful, she almost cried in front of Myka. They were eating takeout, Myka ravenously, and Helena indifferently because she was so incredibly exhausted. She looked up from her Pad Thai and saw Myka looking adorable and ridiculous with noodles hanging from her mouth, and the rush of love that hit her was overwhelming. As was the grief and pain and guilt that immediately followed it. She excused herself in a choked voice and almost ran to the bathroom, turning the shower on as high as it would go, stripping and hiding her tears under the stingingly hot water. She turned the shower radio on to hide the sound of her sobbing. Myka would want to comfort her, would feel bad if she heard Helena crying, and Helena knew that she didn't deserve any of that. This time, however, she was too loud, or Myka had been paying more attention than Helena realised, because she felt Myka's strong arms wrapping around her from behind, holding her tightly, whispering soothing nonsense in her ear. It was too much, and Helena's knees gave way. They sank to the floor together, the water beating down on them. Myka didn't let go until Helena had stopped sobbing and was relatively calm.

"I'm so sorry, Myka. I'm so sorry." That started another storm of weeping, and Myka stayed, held her in a close embrace that Helena didn't deserve, but that nonetheless soothed her and made her relax against Myka. Myka didn't speak, not until she had wrapped Helena up in towels, half-carried her to what used to be their bedroom and quietly encouraged her to don the soft pyjamas she had found for her. She settled Helena in bed and turned to leave. Helena's voice stopped her.

"Why, Myka? You know I don't deserve you. Why?"

"Just because you don't deserve it doesn't mean I don't care."

She went out without a backward glance, closing the door behind her quietly.

Helena couldn't have explained why, but she slept like a baby that night.

Myka and Helena's next session with Dr Frederic did not end with them laughing together. Dr Frederic asked them to begin by talking about the issues that had led to Helena being unfaithful to Myka. Helena explained that she still wasn't sure why she had done what she did. Myka couldn't look at Helena when she said this. Dr Frederic asked them to be honest with one another. Myka tried to stay calm but she couldn't, she cried uncontrollably, and could only say that Helena had hurt her more than anyone, more than her father even.

Helena flinched when Myka said that. She looked at Dr Frederic for permission, and took Myka's hands in hers and spoke to her directly, rather than to Dr Frederic as she had before.

"I can't excuse this, Myka. I know that it's the worst thing I've ever done. And I am trying, trying so hard to work out why, and to get a hold of myself. I did this, in part at least because I have been so scared of losing you. The men I slept with – not one of them matters to me. There has only ever been you for me. I have never loved anyone else the way I love you. The fact that it was just sex might not make it any better, but it's all I have right now." Myka was still crying, and Helena knew that it must be killing her that she couldn't get control of her emotions in front of a stranger, so she asked Dr Frederic if they could end the session early. Dr Frederic nodded, and left them alone in the office.

Helena hesitated.

"Can I hold you, Myka?"

Myka didn't look up, just nodded, her head in her hands. Helena moved to sit next to her and slid her arms around Myka's slightly resisting body, pulled her closer, her head against Helena's chest. She did not speak – anything she said would just make things worse. She held Myka until she stopped crying, until she was able to wipe her face, and then kissed her temple softly and let her go.

Later, when they were both at opposite ends of the couch in their living room, Myka thanked her for that. "At least you still understand me," she said, her face blotchy and her eyes red-rimmed. It wasn't much, but it was a start.

Their next session was harder still, at least for Helena. She asked Dr Frederic and Myka if she could talk directly to Myka, to tell her something that was important to her, that she thought Myka needed to know. Dr Frederic nodded her assent, and Myka took a deep breath and nodded too. Helena was pensive and Myka seemed to sense that whatever it was, it was important to Helena.

"Before I came to the States, you know I was in hospital for a while after Christina died. After they let me out, I had to see a psychiatrist for a long time. He made me think about what Christina would want, and asked me to try and live my life, to make a new life for myself, for her. I couldn't go back to Mountview, not after losing Christina – it had all been so public, me getting pregnant and leaving. I couldn't face the sympathy and the gossip. So I had the genius idea to leave the UK and come here, to Juilliard. I had all this money, and since my family was gone anyway, it made sense." Myka nodded.

"I know you know most of this, but what I never told you, or anyone really, was that I still...I think I still had every intention of killing myself. I still wanted to end the pain. I made the promise that I would try and make a go of Juilliard, of being an actress. But underneath it all I wanted to fail, so I would have an excuse. I stayed away from people, tried not to make friends. Except that Steve wouldn't leave me alone, and he pulled me into our little group of friends. And then you came along." Tears were making their way slowly down her face, and Myka's.

"When you and I became friends that Christmas, and when we got so close, I began to get scared. I still wanted out of it all, I still wanted to die. But you – and the others, to a degree, but mainly you – you made me want to stay. You made me want to live. And I didn't want to, at the same time. So when you kissed me the first time, that's why I pulled away. I wanted you so badly, I was already in love with you even then. But I was still so incredibly depressed and grief-stricken that I couldn't think straight. Anyway, I think what I'm trying to say is that you brought me back to life, Myka, against my will, but you did it anyway. I am here because of you." She stopped talking for a moment because her voice was cracking, the strain of making this confession breaking through. Helena took a breath and continued, with difficulty, "What happened afterwards – when we broke up, when you… – I think that's part of why I ended up doing what I did, ended up pregnant. I know how much I hurt you, but I hope that by explaining where I was, what was going on in my head, it might make it a little better. I am so incredibly lucky to have met you, Myka. You saved me. Even if we don't make it through all this, even if you can't ever see past what I've done, I need you to know. " Myka was crying. Dr Frederic spoke then, gently praising Helena for saying something so difficult. They talked about what driven Helena to feel like she would be better off dead, and why Myka in particular had changed that. Myka didn't speak much, but something was shining through the tears in her eyes that was familiar, and it gave Helena hope that they might have a future.

Helena was trying, in her therapy, to work out what had possessed her to have sex with other people. Her love for Myka had never dimmed, not in all the years they'd been apart, so why was it that when they got back together, _that's_ when she started to bollocks everything up? Her therapist, an older lady by the rather unusual name of Ted, had asked her to think about what her strongest feeling had been when she and Myka had reconciled. Was it happiness, or relief? Helena thought about it and eventually admitted that relief had been the larger part of what she was feeling back then. That Myka had acquiesced to her rather bullying attitude when she'd returned had made her feel excessively relieved. Part of Helena had still believed that when Myka woke up from the anaesthesia, she would tell her to get out and never come back, that she was clinging, that she wasn't needed. That Myka would say those words to her again – it was probably Helena's greatest fear, and it consumed her. And that fear, it appeared, was the crux of it. She was terrified by the cancer, that it might take Myka away forever. But she was even more afraid that Myka herself would do that, would take away her happiness again.

Ted asked her to consider one other aspect of her return. Helena had been very upfront with how she felt about what Myka had done. So why had she come back when Myka had hurt her so badly that she'd retreated into herself for five years? Helena wasn't sure, not entirely. When she thought back to that day in the hospital room, to when she was sitting on a hospital bed with a sobbing Myka Bering in her arms, her strongest recollection was feeling relief and that certain something that she always felt when Myka was in her arms. But a part of her resented that she was there at all, that the pull of her love for Myka was so strong that it made her drop everything, her safe (if rather empty) life in London, to come back to an uncertain future. An uncertain future with the woman she loved more than anyone – the woman who had hurt her more than anyone.

Ted hadn't needed to say much more. Helena spent a lot of time thinking about her actions, her thoughts and feelings, and her lost five years – years that had been wonderful in terms of her career, but a disaster in terms of her having any sort of real personal life. She didn't come to any sort of epiphany, but she did understand herself a little better. The biggest thing driving her was fear. Her relationship with Myka was the most profound and joyful part of her life, other than the short time she had spent with her daughter. Her fear of losing that was the largest part of what had driven her to do what she'd done. She knew also that she had been hurt on a profound level by what Myka had done, and that she was resentful in a way that her love for Myka had overcome her need to protect herself from experiencing such pain again. It was not an answer, an exact why, but it did clarify matters. Cheating on Myka was an enormous betrayal and she could never take it back. But if Myka could ever forgive her, she would try to forgive herself.

Ted continued to be relentless in her digging. She kept going back to the cheating, trying to make Helena look at it from every angle. Why she'd done what she did, and not something else, like drinking or drugs or driving too fast. Helena made some progress, as Ted termed it, in a session that felt like it lasted a year.

"I needed to lose myself. I couldn't do drugs – I tried some years ago at uni, and I hated that feeling, of losing control, of not being myself. I could never lose myself in it. I tried drinking, but I could never get drunk enough. Or I got too drunk, and nothing that I did mattered when I was like that. I could only ever lose myself in another person, and they – those guys – they were the thing I needed. I couldn't sleep with women because they reminded me so much of her – not even when we were apart for those years. So I used those men to lose myself, to forget the fear."

"So it's about control, about controlling the fear? Is that why you did this, in particular, do you think?" Ted asked.

Helena leaned forward, her elbows on her knees, examining her fingernails closely as she thought.

"I think that was most of it, the control thing. I don't know, really, if that is all of it. But I was so…so fucking terrified that she would leave me again. I have a life now, with friends that are almost family, and Myka has the power to take it all away. She has taken it away, once. I've never felt so lost, so abandoned, as when we broke up. Not even when I came home the night of the explosion and realised that my whole family were gone. Is that wrong? That I felt worse, in a way, when I lost Myka, than I did when my whole family died?"

She was crying quietly, and Ted handed her a tissue.

"Helena, how you feel is how you feel. Nothing about it is wrong. You worked hard, after you lost your daughter, your entire family, to come here to the US and try to build a new life for yourself. You felt abandoned because you lost your new life in one day – your friends, the woman you loved. You didn't go back to school, you went straight to Broadway. All of those things were big – really big changes, really big losses. And not dealing with them, or dealing with them in a destructive way, has led you to where you are now. Don't belittle your feelings, or feel bad for feeling the way you do. Just think before you act, and try to do better. That's all any of us can do."

Helena took that to heart. She had to do better. She didn't really believe, after everything, that Myka would stay. But she wanted to be a better person, even if it was too late for her and Myka. If she lost everything again, she would live a better life and make sure that her child lived a good life, too. She couldn't ever make up for what she had done, but she could try to do better.


	8. Chapter 8

Helena was three months pregnant and starting to show. She had gone to the previous baby-related appointments with Steve, too frightened to even ask Myka to come along. She had the sonogram pictures in her wallet and had decided not to learn the sex until she could discuss it with Myka. In the end, though, Myka approached her. They had been speaking a little more, as they were working things out in their therapy, but things were still painfully strained when it came to personal matters. Myka was still sleeping in the guest room.

"I know we haven't talked much about this, but I guess you've already had a few doctor's appointments about the baby?" Myka peered over the rim of her morning coffee cup, looking incredibly serious and adorable in her glasses. (She rarely wore them, but was too tired to wear her contacts that morning. Helena loved it when she wore her glasses.)

Helena nodded cautiously.

"When...when is the next one? Because I would like to come." She said it firmly. Helena was astonished, but tried hard to keep her face smooth.

"Of course. I would love for you to come." She tried to keep her face neutral, but the joy she felt must have leaked through, because Myka was suddenly holding her, and they were both crying. Helena pulled the sonogram pictures from her purse, and they huddled together on the couch, looking at the pictures in awe. Myka impulsively kissed Helena, a quick peck. But she and Helena both gasped at the contact between them. It was their first, since the day Helena had told her. She thought, for a moment, and something passed over her face as she looked from Helena to the sonogram picture. She leaned forward and, looking Helena in the eye until she was too close to focus, kissed her gently, once, twice. They were chaste kisses, but there was promise in them.

 _The past is on the cutting room floor_

 _The future is here, with me_

 _Choose me..._

The hectic pace of their life continued, and while Myka's face was mostly grim and thoughtful when she looked at Helena, sometimes the music and the lyrics took them over, made them see who they were to one another once again. To Myka, the real beauty of musical theatre had always been that in music was truth. The characters' innermost thoughts always came out in song. Things that were hidden were brought out into the light, and the music exposed the truth, exposed the characters to the bone. It helped them now to see where they were headed, to see what was true. Yes, she hated Helena in many ways for what she'd done. But underneath it all, underneath her own actions, lies and evasions, lay the truth. She had been in love with Helena Wells almost since the moment they met. Even pushing her away had been a misguided act of love. She spent her free time, such as it was, lost in thought, and when they were in the apartment together, she found herself regarding Helena over the edge of her book or the rim of her teacup, trying to puzzle out her thoughts and feelings. During one session with Abigail, her therapist and friend asked her to consider something that had never occurred to her before.

"When you broke up with Helena, or rather, when you forced her to leave that night, you said that it was because you couldn't bear to hurt her anymore. That you were trying to spare her from losing you at a later date if you died."

Myka nodded uncertainly, not sure where this was going.

"Did you ever consider that you might have done it as a pre-emptive strike? In case Helena got sick of taking care of you? You have told me how you felt back then, with the hair loss and the bloating from the steroids. And when you looked at Helena she was perfect. Did you ever think that she was going to leave you because you were sick, you were fat, you were bald? Because you have described yourself as all those things to me at one time or another."

Myka sat for a moment, thinking. It had become a habit of hers, primarily because of her therapy with Abigail, to stop and think before answering. Too often in the past she had misinterpreted questions or comments in a negative light, thinking that people were trying to hurt her or embarrass her in some way. She knew Abigail wasn't trying to make her feel bad, but rather trying to make her think about her own actions and emotions. And in this instance, she thought Abigail might be right. She had convinced herself that breaking up with Helena – saying those terrible things – was for Helena's own good. But she had harboured a deep and pervasive fear, even before getting sick, that Helena would see Myka as Myka saw herself, and would leave her, because why would anyone as beautiful and perfect as Helena Wells want plain old nerdy Myka Bering? She was always, always waiting for the other shoe to drop. So when she got sick, the fear was amplified. Cancer was a lot to deal with for anyone. They were still in the early stages of their relationship, and the idea of Helena staying through everything that the cancer entailed was ludicrous to Myka.

She looked up at Abigail, who was looking at her curiously.

"That was a long pause, even for you. What were you thinking?"

"I was thinking that you are right. I think that a lot of the reason why I broke up with Helena, why I forced her to leave, was that I thought she would do it eventually anyway. Because I didn't think I was worth it in the first place, and then throwing the cancer in the mix, I thought she would run. And the longer she stayed, the sweeter she was, the more I had to lose. And you're right, I would wake up in the morning and go throw up, and there she was, mopping my brow and looking like she'd just stepped out of the pages of a magazine. And I would look at myself in the mirror, and I was bloated and I had virtually no hair. I guess it's not too surprising that I would think she wouldn't want me like that."

Abigail nodded at her sympathetically.

"I think that you should consider your actions in that light – you had this fear of losing Helena, and what you did was to push her away so that you would be the one who broke it off. That way you wouldn't be the one who had to be rejected. And I don't want to try to tell you that I know what Helena was thinking, because I really don't know what made her do what she did - but do you think it's possible that her behaviour might have been rooted in her fear of losing you? She did lose you once, after all. You rejected her and I think that it's more than possible that she was afraid it might happen again."

The next thing Abigail said surprised Myka – or rather, her own immediate answer to that question surprised her.

"Do you trust Helena? Not to cheat again?" Abigail was giving her the direct look that had always made Myka feel like she was looking into her soul, somehow. It was a look that Mrs Frederic also levelled on Myka far too often.

"Yes."

Abigail's eyebrow lifted in surprise.

"Why?"

Myka thought, for another long moment.

"Because she's so…broken right now. I believe that she didn't really want to do what she did, that it was something she did to cope. And I believe that she stopped when she said she did, after Nate…" She spat his name out, and continued with some difficulty after swallowing thickly.

"I hate what she did. I have a lot of pain, and hate, and anger about all of it. But her? I love her. And I can see, every time she looks at me, how much she loves me. It scares me, how loving she was even while she was doing all this stuff – how much she was like two people, I guess. But I still trust her. I don't really know why. I just know that - unless she is a completely different person than I thought - this was a mistake and that she won't do it again." She ran her fingers through her hair and huffed out a harsh laugh. "Jesus, calling it a mistake makes it sound like she ordered the wrong coffee or something, but you know what I mean. She screwed up, but I am partly to blame for what happened to get her to that place, that state of mind."

Abigail took her hand for a second sympathetically.

"You have the right to feel whatever you feel, Myka, but I'm glad to hear you say that you understand how she got there. If you understand it, it might be something you can forgive. I'm not saying you should or shouldn't forgive her; just that it's more of a possibility if you really can understand the why of what she did."

During the next session they had with Dr Frederic, Myka was thoughtful when Helena brought up her fear of losing Myka. That Myka would decide for them again, and take away the only happiness she had enjoyed since Christina died. And when she talked about how losing Myka had also meant losing her friends, Myka flinched. She had been so lost in her own misery in those days that she didn't entirely think through what she had done, what it would mean for Helena's life. She realised that she had taken herself away from Helena, but she hadn't really taken into account that she, by default, had taken away everyone else in her life too. Because she lived with Claudia and Steve, and she still had cancer and all that entailed – chemotherapy, physical therapy. So their friends pretty much had to choose Myka, of the two of them. Helena was lost without Myka, but she was also lost without Steve and Pete and Claudia and Abigail. She had been able to maintain a relationship with Steve and Abigail, mostly by email, but it wasn't the same. So when she said that she feared losing Myka again, it wasn't just Myka, it was everything - her life in New York as a whole. Which was part of what had eventually driven her back to London. What Helena was saying about her fear, combined with everything that Myka had discussed during her recent session with Abigail – it was like a switch flipping in Myka's head. They were so similar, she and Helena. Their responses to the fear of losing one another had led them here. Myka had pushed Helena into leaving, so that Helena wouldn't see Myka the way Myka saw herself – useless, broken – and leave her. Helena had slept with other people because she was so terrified of losing Myka. They were both trying to control the uncontrollable.

"I hate to point out the obvious, ladies," said Dr Frederic, "but it does appear to me that had either of you simply spoken to one another about your fears, rather than closing yourselves off and trying to control the situation in your own...unique fashions, you might have fared rather better. Would you agree?"

They both nodded, eyes meeting thoughtfully. Myka felt, out of the blue, a sudden surge of lust, looking at Helena's dark eyes. God, she hadn't felt that since Helena had told her about the baby.

Helena, too, was feeling a little hot under the collar as she watched Myka's pupils dilate and her face flush slightly. It had been a while since she had seen that look on Myka's face, or indeed felt this way herself. With the others she'd slept with, it was only physical and there was always a pervasive sense of shame and fear. What she felt as she looked at Myka - this was pure, tempered only with love. This woman was her whole life. She was praying that they could fix this, could get back to each other.

Dr Frederic was watching them carefully, and she suddenly told them that she needed to finish the session early, because something had come up. When they left, she smiled to herself. There was more than one way to heal.

They didn't talk much on the way home, but Myka took Helena's hand absently in hers as she drove, playing with her fingers idly.

"You know that I still love you, right?" She said it quietly, and she didn't look at Helena.

"I hoped." Helena said, simply.

"Even with everything, you don't have to doubt it. I love you, or I wouldn't be here. The same way that I know you must love me, or you never would have come back." She ran her thumb over Helena's knuckles lightly. "We're going to be okay."

They didn't make it to the couch. They made love on the rug in the hallway, gasping, rising and falling desperately together.


	9. Chapter 9

"So," Pete said, taking a giant bite of his sandwich, "you're going to be a mommy. Myka Bering, Broadway star, soon to be TV star, and mommy. I gotta admit, I never saw that one coming.

"When Pete told me, I nearly punched him in the face. You guys really don't fuck around when you're fighting with one another, do you?" There was a beat of awkward silence, and then Claudia added, "Sorry. Poor choice of words."

Myka looked at Claudia for a moment, eyebrow raised, and then sighed.

"I was a little surprised myself, guys. But it turns out, the idea of a baby with Helena has been the easiest part of all of this to deal with. She cares so much, about everything. She will be – she was already – an amazing mother. I just don't know that I'm going to be much help. I never even thought about kids before this, and my parents weren't exactly the best example. I worry that I'm going to mess this up, mess the kid up, you know?" Her brow was furrowed as she contemplated her sandwich.

"Dude, you will be amazing. You looked after all of us the whole way through school, even when you had cancer you were still mothering the crap out of me and Pete. You and Steve were like Momma and Poppa bear, and Helena was like hot Momma bear." Claudia's voice went a little dreamy at the last comment – she'd always had a bit of a crush on Helena. Myka bore it stoically for the most part, but she did give Claudia a mock-glare when she called Helena a hot momma.

Pete interjected, "You will be amazing, Mykes. You are so caring. You and Helena together – you kind of make me sick, in an awesome kind of way. You care about each other so much. There is no way you won't care for that baby and love the crap out of it. You will be fine." He gave her a big sweaty hug like he used to back at Juilliard. He was on a break from rehearsals for a 70's musical which was mostly dance-based. He smelled like ass. She punched him in the arm, just like she used to back at Juilliard. They grinned at each other. She was weirdly reassured by what Claudia and Pete had to say, and even by Pete's stinky hug. Maybe she could be a good parent.

Of all their friends, Steve was their rock. He came by every couple of days, in between shows (he was in Rent, playing Tom Collins) and when they weren't rehearsing or recording. He went to some of the baby appointments with them, and he held Helena or teased her gently when she was having the 'baby crazies', as he called them, and calmly reassured Myka when she panicked about being a parent. He had met a younger man called Liam, who was an ASM like Claudia, and they were madly in lust. He brought Liam round a few times, but mostly it was just the three of them, having a few beers, (fruit juice or tea for Helena, of course) pizza, and laughing together. His serenity was contagious.

Helena was exhausted. The pregnancy combined with the long days on the set and recording were taking their toll. As was the emotional turmoil. She tiptoed around their apartment, and was solicitous and pleasant and never pushing herself too far forward, allowing Myka to set the pace of their relationship. The kisses they had shared when Myka had asked to come to the next pre-natal appointment were the only ones they'd shared for months. And Helena craved more, craved Myka with an intensity she hadn't felt since they were students together at Juilliard. Not that she blamed Myka for keeping her distance. She was stunned, quite frankly, that Myka was still there at all, let alone still wearing her engagement ring. _That_ , they hadn't even talked about. But she still saw Myka looking from her to the ring on her finger from time to time, that thoughtful, indecipherable look upon her face. She would have given anything to know what Myka was thinking. But she also thought, a lot of the time, that she probably didn't want to know.

The day before their couples counselling, Helena had counselling of her own with her therapist. Ted had seen her through everything, and had helped Helena to see why she had done the insane things she had. Helena wasn't at the point of forgiving herself, not yet. But she thought it might be possible, given time. Ted told her that it was time to talk about her fears, to tell Myka that it was fear of losing her that had driven her to the insanity with those men. So she steeled herself and brought it up with Mrs Frederic. And Myka finally responded with something other than that thoughtful expression. Something clicked between them, almost audibly. Their connection came back to life with a force that thrilled Helena. The look in Myka's eyes…suddenly Helena remembered their first kiss, the look in Myka's eyes during the rehearsal that night. She felt like a teenager again when, on the way home from the session with Dr Frederic, Myka told her she still loved her. She had been craving those words ever since she had told Myka about the pregnancy. She didn't realise how much she needed to hear them until Myka stopped saying them. Something in her had stopped, these past months, and now it stuttered and started again. They came together wildly, against the wall until Helena's knees gave out, and Myka lowered them both gently to the floor, whispering in Helena's ear, driving her insane. The bloody floor was hell on her back, but she would take the backache a million times over if it meant being with Myka again.

Things were far from solved, however. Helena, still, could barely look herself in the eye in the mirror. That she had managed to convince herself that what she was doing was okay astounded her, now. She knew the reasons well enough for her infidelity, and when she stood back and tried to look at things the way Myka seemed to, these days, could even understand it, logically. But she couldn't reconcile the two people she had been during that time. The Helena who was having sex with men she didn't love, and the Helena who truly loved Myka Bering and wanted to spend the rest of her life making Myka happy. Her therapist helped her to work things out, of course, but she was a little frightened of the way she had separated those two lives so successfully.

Myka was learning, slowly, to deal with the conflicting feelings she had for and about Helena. She both loved her and hated her, sometimes in equal measure. But the love part won out, most days. Most. The days when it didn't were the days when Myka had to go elsewhere; go see Pete or Steve or go for a run in the park for 3 hours. Whatever it took to deal with it, and let it pass. Because if Myka had learned one thing from this whole debacle, it was to consider carefully before making a decision. Pushing Helena away impulsively had screwed everything up. Running away wouldn't solve anything for her. She could leave Helena behind and make a new life for herself, but what were the odds that things would be any better than they had been the last time they'd been apart? It had almost destroyed her and Helena, both. So she worked hard, at her day job and at the therapy with Abigail and Dr Frederic.

On a rare day off, they went to Central Park to sit on the grass and eat ice cream. Helena was lying back on the grass with Myka's sweater under her head.

"I need to say something." Myka's voice was firm.

Helena turned to look at her, lifting her sunglasses up on to her head. She was a little frightened that this was it, that Myka had decided she couldn't carry on any more. She met Myka's eyes and nodded. If it was time, it was time.

"I…when you came back, I felt like everything was okay. Like we were back together properly, that I could depend on you always being there. Like I always did before." She ran one hand through her curls, leaning back on her other arm and looking into the distance. Helena waited.

"When you told me about the baby, I felt like that was all gone, like the foundation was gone from my world. Because I couldn't trust you any more, couldn't trust that you were in this with me."

Helena closed her eyes. She thought to herself, this, this is the consequence, this is what happens when you do something like this. When you betray someone.

Myka continued.

"I think…I realised, when I was talking to Abigail, that you already felt that way, even after you came back. Because I broke us, without any warning, I threw away what we had."

That wasn't what Helena expected. She opened her eyes again to see what Myka's expression said, where she was going with this, but Myka was still looking away.

"So I guess, in some ways, we're even. I don't mean that to be bitter or whatever, I just mean that we both know, now, what it's like to feel like that." She turned to look at Helena. Her eyes were a brilliant green in the sunlight, the gold pattern of her iris stunning Helena, momentarily.

"I don't want to feel that way any more, Helena. I want to know, to trust, that you're with me, that you're by my side. I don't want to feel like I always have to turn my head, to watch, to make sure that you're there." Her voice was soft.

"So I'm going to say this once. If you do it again? If you cheat? Even a kiss? We are done. I know why you did it, and I know what I did to get us here. But I need to know that we're finished with that, all of it. I am in this with you, but only if I can trust that you are, too."

She turned her body fully to face Helena. The breeze stirred her hair. Helena stared shamelessly.

"Myka. I know what I did was unforgiveable. I know that sorry isn't enough. It was madness. I was hurt and I was broken and I still am, in so many ways. But there are two things that I am sure of. One is that I love you and I want to be with you for the rest of my life. The other is that I will do anything for this baby. If you truly are able to move on from this, which quite frankly, I can't really allow myself to believe, then I can only tell you that I want nothing more. I…what I did, it frightened me. Because I was here, with you, and I was happy, but then when I was away, and I thought about losing you – I did those things, I became someone I don't recognise. I hope that it's okay to say that I don't entirely trust myself. But I am working hard to work things out, to be better. For you, and for this baby. So yes, I am in this, for the long haul. For as long as you will have me. I love you so much. I know I can never make up for this, but I will try."

Myka searched her eyes for a long moment. Helena met them as honestly as she could. Finally, Myka nodded.

"Okay."

She reached out and took Helena's hand.

"I love you too."


	10. Chapter 10

By the time Helena was six months pregnant, things had settled between her and Myka. They had begun to heal that afternoon on the floor of the hallway, and while the atmosphere had been fraught between them at times since, being as busy as they were seemed to help Myka not to dwell on Helena's infidelity, and helped Helena not to dwell on her guilt – the guilt that was a permanent, physical presence in her chest, a lump in her throat. The show was more than halfway done, and when Helena had told the producers about the pregnancy, they changed the filming schedule to accommodate her. Myka and Helena began to share a bed again. After a while Myka developed the habit of stroking Helena's belly every morning, and sometimes she sang lullabies to the baby when they were in bed at night. Whenever Myka talked to Helena's pregnant belly, or she caught her looking at the sonogram pictures on the refrigerator, the joy Helena felt was overwhelming. The fear was there, and the incredible weight of guilt, but she worked hard at the breathing exercises Ted had given her, worked hard to change the compulsive patterns her brain fell back on whenever she thought about losing this, losing Myka.

Myka felt like she was falling in love with Helena all over again. Helena was even more beautiful pregnant, her face luminous. The baby, which was at first a visible reminder of what Helena had done, became one of the things that brought them back to one another. The idea of Helena as a mother was alluring, as was Helena herself as the baby grew inside her. She grew more serene, and the joy on her face when she touched her stomach, or caught Myka watching her, made Myka's heart stutter and ache. She was so beautiful. Myka had never really seen the beauty before in a pregnant woman. She didn't get the whole pregnancy 'glow' thing. Pregnant women always just looked unwieldy and tired to her. But Helena, her black hair, her pale skin – she really _did_ glow. It was a cliché, but clichés are clichés for a reason, Myka thought. She couldn't keep herself from touching Helena, walking up behind her when they had a break on set, kissing the back of her neck and cupping her hands around Helena's growing baby bump. She felt a little clingy, truth be told, but Helena was so responsive to every touch that she couldn't stop. She was addicted. She felt like the same giddy almost-adult she had been when she and Helena had first met.

She, too, was terrified of losing this. Of losing Helena, primarily, but also of the possibility of losing the baby and what that would do to Helena. And there were days when bile and bitterness and visions of Helena screwing faceless men filled her mind. On those days she tried to stay away from Helena, tried to let the anger and pain and sometimes even hatred pass through her, let them do their thing and go. She had asked Steve one day to teach her about meditation and his beliefs as a Buddhist, and on the bad days, she went to see him when she could, sat with him and meditated, tried to find some peace in the middle of the pain and betrayal that flooded her. She was starting to take a different view of things. She loved Helena, and despite what Helena had done, what they'd done to one another, that hadn't changed. She spent a lot of time talking to Abigail, in and out of her office, and to Steve, Pete and Claudia and even Leena, who had begun to spend more time with their little group. (Myka had caught Claudia watching Leena a few times surreptitiously and she had started to entertain some suspicions about her young friend's feelings for the up-and-coming director. She kept it to herself, but vowed that if she got the opportunity, she would help nudge them along, assuming Leena felt the same. They deserved happiness.) Myka had also begun, hesitantly, to talk to Helena about her fears. She had – they had – promised Dr Frederic that they would try to communicate more effectively. It was hard for her to let go enough to talk about it – and trying to talk to Helena, who was the reason she was so frightened in the first place, left her shaking and stuttering.

Late one night they were sitting on the couch, listening to music to try and drive out the buzzing music inside their heads. They had found that spending a whole day singing the same song or sometimes even the same phrases over and over again could send them completely batshit crazy when they were trying to rest. So they put some music on, something different enough to drive out the repeating words and music from their brains. Helena's legs were draped across Myka's knees, and Myka was rubbing her feet. Helena was making the most delicious moaning noises, and Myka found it really hard to concentrate on what she wanted to say.

"Helena." It came out as a croak, and Helena opened her eyes a crack, concerned.

"Yes, love?"

"I...I wanted to talk to you about the baby, about everything. I can't...why can't I even get the words out? Jesus!" She was almost in tears, and Helena sat up slowly and ponderously because of her bump. She moved to sit beside Myka, and put her arm around Myka's shoulders.

"Myka, you're scaring me, sweetheart. What is it? What's upsetting you?" Her face was screwed up in concern.

"I'm sorry, honey. I'm just so scared, of everything. I love you so much, I love the baby so much, and I can't help but think that something's going to go wrong, that someone's going to take you away from me. What if something happens to the baby? I can't lose you, not again, not after everything." Myka was crying now, and Helena knew how much she had let go of in that moment – her control, her self-sufficient attitude – she'd given them up to be honest about her feelings. Helena was amazed again that Myka loved her like this, loved her enough to lose the control she valued above all else. She held Myka close and spoke into her hair.

"I am terrified too, Myka. Having you here, you telling me that you love me, and the baby – it's more than I could have dreamed of, even just a few months ago. I thought you would leave and never come back. Truth be told, I wouldn't even have blamed you if you had. I love you so much. I cannot make promises about the future, because in reality we don't have any control over life, not really. But I can promise you that no matter what happens, if it is possible, I will be by your side. And besides, we have already been through so much, surely we deserve some happiness? I am so frightened of losing this, all of it. But when you're with me, holding my hand or just even looking at me with those stupidly beautiful eyes, I believe that we will be together forever, our little family." She kissed Myka, and one kiss turned to another, and another. They made love on the couch, and Helena knew that Myka was remembering their first night here, when she had given Myka a key, and they had fallen asleep tangled together.

They made it to bed before they fell asleep this time, but the last thing Helena heard before she drifted off was Myka saying she wanted to get married before the baby came. She smiled.

The wedding planning began straight away. Not that Helena or Myka actually seemed to have a say in it, as things turned out. Steve and Claudia jumped up and down when they told them, and after that it was like watching a runaway train speeding off into the distance - one without either of them aboard. They were in Steve and Claudia's apartment, and they both watched in puzzlement as both Steve and Claudia babbled about flower arrangements and choirs of small children and rose petals. Helena's face was hilarious as she watched them incredulously. Then the two of them grabbed their stuff and left the apartment to go and make arrangements, leaving Helena and Myka in the kitchen, wondering what the hell had just happened. They cracked up when they realised that Steve and Claudia had just forgotten them entirely, and when they finally stopped laughing (Helena kept snorting, pig-like, setting Myka off all over again) they shrugged and decided to let their friends go nuts.

"As long as they remember to invite us!" Helena said, and they let themselves out quietly and headed to Pete and Amanda's place to tell them.

Helena was seven months pregnant now, and was starting to get really unwieldy. She was huffing constantly, and Myka couldn't help but find it adorable. Helena was high maintenance on a good day, but pregnant and uncomfortable, she was a veritable nightmare. Myka thought it was cute when Helena had a temper tantrum about showing up to her own wedding looking like a heifer at calving time, as she insisted on calling herself. The fact that Myka found her histrionics cute only made her more pissed off. They bickered a lot, but Myka usually found herself giggling uncontrollably when Helena got annoyed, and things degenerated from there.

The first dress fitting was one such occasion. They'd both decided to wear dresses, and Steve was running them ragged trying to find the perfect dress to complement Helena's pregnant body. She was too hot, her face was red, she was mad as hell, and she couldn't get the zip closed. Steve was shrinking back as the force of Helena's fury turned on him. And then Myka got the giggles. For a minute, she thought Helena was going to punch her. And the thought of Helena getting that mad made Myka laugh even harder. She was doubled over, holding her stomach, which was threatening to explode like John Hurt's in Alien. Helena was huffing and puffing beside her, and Steve was staring wide-eyed from one to the other, looking like he was about to bolt.

Myka tried hold it in, but she couldn't resist. She made her best Hulk face, and brought her fists together. (It's possible that going to watch the Avengers with Pete was a bad idea.)

"Helena SMASH!"

Steve stared at her, his eyes even wider, and at that point she had to sit on the floor of the changing room, because she couldn't hold herself up any more. Then Helena started laughing too, and then all three of them were in a heap on the floor, tears running down their faces. After that Helena kept her tantrums to a minimum. The wedding dresses were chosen, a simple strappy white dress for Helena, and a classic floor-length satin gown for Myka.

The wedding day was warm and sunny. They got married in Central Park, in the Conservatory Garden, and Dr Frederic presided over the ceremony. She had unexpectedly offered when they informed her that they were planning on marrying before the baby arrived. She remained impressed with their commitment to one another, she said, and asked them to allow her the pleasure of performing the ceremony.

Their friends had, after some consultation, decided to sing a re-arranged acapella version of "For Good". Pete, thankfully, had bowed out of the singing part, and Amanda had stepped in to add her voice to the ladies'. Steve and Liam were providing the tenor and bass respectively. Claudia and Abigail were singing the main parts.

 _I've heard it said that people come into our lives for a reason_

 _Bringing something we must learn_

 _And we are led to those who help us most to grow, if we let them_

 _And we help them in return_

 _Well I don't know if I believe that's true_

 _But I know I'm who I am today because I knew you_

 _Like a comet pulled from orbit_

 _As it passes the sun_

 _Like a stream that meets a boulder halfway through the wood_

 _Who can say if I've been changed for the better?_

 _But because I knew you, I have been changed for good._

Myka and Helena both cried as their friends sang the song that, in so many ways, had brought them together. Helena _was_ the sun, to Myka. She had been pulled into her gravity almost immediately, and try as she might, she had never escaped it. She hadn't known where she was headed when she was pulled into Helena's orbit. At that time she was defined not by where she was headed, but by what she was travelling away from – her father and the horror of her childhood. Helena had pulled her in and provided her with a home for the first time in her life. And Helena, for her part, knew that she would never be who she was without Myka, without this incandescent woman beside her. She had never been so grateful for anything in her life. When Claudia and Abigail sang the last words of the song, spontaneous applause broke out, and there were tears and sniffles all through the small crowd of people who had gathered to celebrate Helena and Myka's happiness. Even Dr Frederic's eyes were glistening suspiciously.

After they exchanged the rings, (which were engraved on the inside with the legend "Because I knew you,") and Myka had almost bowled Helena over with her enthusiastic kissing of the (other) bride, their friends came by in small groups to congratulate them. Artie Nielsen was there with Vanessa Calder, much to Myka's surprise. Apparently she and Helena were indirectly responsible for that relationship, since Vanessa had come to see them in Wicked and met Artie that way. They were getting married next fall. A few of their other teachers from Juilliard were there too – Ms St-Clair and her husband Jack, and Mr Kosan, who made everyone uncomfortable until he took the hint and left.

Tracy was also there. Tracy, who Myka hadn't seen since she left home that Christmas so many years ago. She was beautiful, grown up, and so much softer than Myka remembered. Years of living with Warren Bering had left their mark on her, but not the kind of marks he used to leave on Myka, thankfully. Her mother was still with him, still making excuses, but Tracy no longer saw their parents. Myka and her sister were alike and yet unalike. Tracy didn't have that air of self-consciousness, of hyper-awareness, that Myka had. But she was beautiful and graceful, and thoroughly charmed by Helena, who flirted with her shamelessly, much to Myka's chagrin. Tracy flirted right back, and teased Myka mercilessly when she glared. Helena loved her immediately.

They had, by general agreement, decided to hold a reception of sorts in the rehearsal room they'd used for Wicked. They'd gained agreement from the school, who were delighted that two of their most distinguished alumni were getting married and wanted to use the school grounds. (Helena suspected that there would be some unsubtle requests to publicise the school in their future, but that was only fair.) There was a buffet and a small band of Juilliard alumni who played a mix of show tunes and some more popular music. Claudia had taken charge of the music side of things immediately, and had chosen the entire playlist. Truth be told, the musicians kept giving her the side eye, looking harassed any time she went to speak to them. Their first dance was, of course, Iris by the Goo Goo Dolls. It started as a simple acoustic cover, and Steve had asked if he could sing it for them. He was wonderful, his voice raw and throaty with emotion as he sang his heart out for his friends. Helena and Myka waltzed and swayed together, stopping in astonishment when an entire string section joined in. The strings had been hidden behind a large curtain, and Claudia, after pulling the curtain back, was beaming at them both as they gaped. Myka mouthed "Thank you," with tears in her eyes, and pulled Helena even closer. The rest of their friends joined them on the dance floor, surrounding them with love as they danced to the song that they'd shared their first real kiss to so many years ago.

Later that night they retired gracefully (or rather, a little disgracefully, as Helena was slipping her hand under the hem of Myka's dress shamelessly) to a suite in the Plaza. Helena couldn't travel because she was in her last trimester so they had decided to take a few days off and be looked after at a hotel. Myka was a little drunk, but Helena was sober. It was a dangerous mix, because Myka normally calmed Helena's more impulsive behaviour, but she couldn't quite manage it after the champagne. Which led to some very lewd behaviour in the elevator at the Plaza. She managed to fend Helena off long enough to get them inside their very ornate suite, safely away from prying eyes, and then she stripped her wife (her wife!) of her dress, and the garter that had been driving her crazy all damn day, hiding under that dress , encircling that perfect thigh...she could barely breathe thinking about it. Helena had become increasingly demanding in the bedroom since the pregnancy hormones had kicked in, and their sex life was already an intense distraction for Myka when they were filming together. After their wedding night she didn't know if she'd ever be able to look at Helena (or herself in the mirror) again without blushing. They both gave in to their desires with an abandon that shocked and pleased them both in equal measure. Myka remembered hoping fervently that the hotel had sprung for soundproofing. (They had not – there were several complaints the following day.) When they finally wore themselves out, Myka pulled Helena close, her hand curved possessively over Helena's belly.

"I love you, Mrs Bering-Wells."

"I love you more, Mrs Bering-Wells."


	11. Chapter 11

The baby was on time, as if he knew that his other mother was a stickler for punctuality. Henry George Bering-Wells was a red-faced, squalling mess. Helena had carried him for nine months, so she was already in love with him. Myka, however, looked at his squishy face a little doubtfully at first, wrinkling her nose as he started crying, and trying to let her panic at Helena's painful birth melt away. But the look on Helena's face when she began to nurse him for the first time literally took Myka's breath away, (Steve had to remind her to breathe when she started to get faint) and just like that she was in love with him as much as she was in love with Helena. Both Claudia and Steve were there, taking pictures that Helena swore they were going to delete or she would kill them, but Myka knew she would mellow and allow them to keep even the embarrassing ones.

"The little dude really looks like you, HG." Claudia smiled as she held the aforementioned little dude, giggling when he grabbed her pinkie in his fat red fist.

"That's probably just as well, because if he looked like his father, Myka would probably divorce me, and we've only been married for a month." Helena laughed at the horrified looks on Steve and Claudia's faces. She and Myka had come to terms with what had happened, and Helena had recently begun to make their friends uncomfortable by saying outrageous things about it. Myka gave her a mock glare. But she couldn't maintain it, it slipped into a goofy grin almost straight away. Steve and Claudia groaned at the look on her face, and the adoration on Helena's.

"You guys are so in love, it makes me want to vomit, seriously!" Steve was making puking gestures.

"Yeah, like you and Liam aren't madly in love." Myka mocked. "It's just sex, really, we're not that into each other," she mimicked. "Is that why I saw you looking at rings the other day?"

Claudia gasped. "Are you fucking serious? You guys are getting married? I can't believe you didn't tell me, Jinksy!" she squealed.

"No, we're not getting married. It's just that these two goofy lesbians made me think about how much I like him, and now I can't stop looking at rings and tuxes. I blame you two, with your perfect Manhattan wedding and your gorgeous baby." He said, turning to Helena and Myka. "It's not fair to impose all that perfection on the rest of us, you know."

Helena and Myka just grinned at each other, and Myka leaned over to kiss Helena softly. At least at first, but Helena bit her bottom lip, and then they were totally making out, and Steve and Claudia were groaning in the background theatrically.

"You are a very bad girl, Mrs Bering-Wells..." Myka said, touching her bottom lip where Helena's teeth had sunk in. Helena just grinned again, wolfishly.

"Barf!" Claudia screeched, and deposited Henry G on Helena's chest, as she and Steve went to call everyone they knew to get them to come to the hospital.

Helena took two weeks off to bond with Henry, and to heal from what was a painful birth. Myka was worried sick about her, but the producers had insisted that she return to work. Her shooting schedule was punishing, and she sometimes didn't get home until dawn. She missed Helena so badly, and it seemed like every time she came home, Henry looked like a different kid. She was also exhausted, her leg hurting worse than it had in years. Thankfully, they were almost finished shooting season one of the show, and Helena only had a few days of shooting when she went back before they wrapped.

"Can we please have a vacation after this, honey?" she begged Helena, one morning when she had just crept in after a scene that they must have shot a thousand times, which involved dancing and singing along with one of their recorded tracks along with most of the supporting cast. Her toes on one foot were bleeding, and her other leg was the one that the cancer had attacked, which currently felt like it was made of molten lead. She felt like cutting them both off, and had taken all the pain medication she could get her hands on before flopping down onto the bed next to Helena. The sun was coming up, and Helena was snuggled up in the foetal position, her body tiny under the covers, her hair messy and her face lined from the pillow. She was stunning. She was also more than half asleep, but she murmured that of course they could go on holiday, before closing her eyes and beginning to snore softly. Myka rolled her eyes, and took the opportunity to wrap herself around her snoring wife and get the sleep she'd been denied by the sadistic director.

Helena had been sleepy when she said it, but apparently she took Myka's request seriously, because she hired a nanny a few days later and booked a two week holiday in Hawaii for all four of them. She invited Steve and Claudia too, but they weren't able to make it for the first week, so they said they'd get back to her about joining them for the second week. Myka was pleased that Helena chose a gay guy for their nanny. At least there would never be any suspicion of infidelity there. She had forgiven Helena, but it was just sensible not to have any possible confusion. The nanny would be a big part of their lives, given that they were both in the middle of busy, successful careers. His name was Aaron. He was short for a guy, with dark hair and brown eyes, and he was amazing with Henry.

After the last few days of shooting were finally completed, and the riotous wrap party attended, they were on their way to Oahu. They soaked up sun, drank cocktails (alcohol-free for Helena, who was still breast-feeding) and explored the island together. Sometimes they took Henry with them, and sometimes they left him with Aaron at the hotel, depending on what their plans were for the day. It was a honeymoon for them, and a real relief to be free from the demands of the stage or shooting schedules, and the stresses of cancer and infidelity. They both felt an intense relief at being away from all that had pulled them apart, and they took the time to come back to one another and enjoy their first vacation as a married couple.

One morning Helena was lying on a sun lounger wearing a red bikini. Her face was red from the sun, and she had grown approximately a million more freckles overnight, it seemed. Myka couldn't take her eyes off her wife. She herself was lounging around in shorts and a tank top. She wasn't as confident with her body as Helena was. But Helena really had reason to be confident. Even now, a month after giving birth, her body was incredible. And since she was nursing – her boobs?! Wow. Myka entertained herself by imagining Pete's expression at seeing Helena right at that moment.

"Are you drooling, my dear wife?" Helena smirked, lifting her sunglasses to more effectively mock a now-stammering Myka.

"You know what that damn bikini does to me, Helena. It's all I can do not to jump on you..." Myka was whispering, her voice almost strangled as she tried to keep anyone nearby from hearing.

Helena smiled smugly and said, "Tough luck, Mrs Bering-Wells. You'll just have to wait until I've finished sunbathing." And she put her sunglasses back on, before gesturing imperiously at Myka to rub suntan lotion into her skin. Myka sighed theatrically and gave in, but she made sure to tickle Helena mercilessly while putting on the lotion in retaliation for her teasing.

Claudia and Steve were able to join them for part of the second week, and they had a fantastic time exploring during the day and eating and drinking together in the evenings. Myka felt like she laughed more during that week than she had that entire year. Claudia and Steve were able to entertain themselves when Helena and Myka preferred to be alone – which was a lot of the time, really, but they enjoyed their friends' company enough that they curbed their enthusiasm for one another enough to spend time with their friends. And then there was Henry. The little dude, as Claudia called him, was a constant joy to them both – all four of them, in fact, and it seemed that Aaron was a little bit in love with his tiny charge too. Everything he did was so cute that they were all transfixed. Myka was a little sickened by how gooey she felt every time she looked at her son. She'd promised herself that she wouldn't be one of those parents that talked about their kid all the time, and took pictures of every damn thing they did – but she very much feared that she was turning into the very thing she had previously abhorred. And she didn't care, not one jot. The joy he brought to her, and to Helena, was worth any amount of embarrassment about her own goofiness. He was a gift. What should have destroyed them had instead brought them together. Claudia remarked to Steve one evening when they had retreated back to their hotel room, "You know, they've always had that energy around them, those two, that made you feel like you were intruding, even when they were just in the same room with one another. But now, with the little dude, they're a family, and I hate to interrupt them. They're so happy, it's like they're luminous. It should make me wanna barf, but I kind of want what they have." Steve hugged her. "I know what you mean. I like Liam a lot, I think I love him in fact, but I have never felt anything like what those two feel for each other and HG Junior. I'm starting to yearn." He pulled his 'Chandler Bing' face, Claudia laughed, and they lay on the bed together holding hands for a long time after.

Reality was beckoning, and they all packed up and returned to New York at the end of a perfect two weeks. Myka and Helena were indeed glowing. Being married was new and wondrous, and Helena's eyes kept returning to Myka's left hand, where a wedding band and engagement ring were nestled together snugly. Helena was still terrified. When Christina was born, she had been alone. Marcus had abandoned her with an alacrity that shouldn't have surprised her, in retrospect, but it had hurt her intensely at the time. She had brought her daughter up mostly alone, until her life had been shattered by the explosion. This – her family – was a thing of incredible wonder. That Myka was still even here after what Helena had done was incredible to her. That they had a son, a son that they both adored – it was practically incomprehensible. Helena knew that she was under the influence of hormones, but the flood of love that she felt every time she looked at her son still shocked her. And watching Myka with him almost stopped her heart. Her wife was so beautiful and so loving. She had everything she could ever want, everything she hadn't even known she wanted, and she was so frightened of losing it all. She made a conscious choice, every time she looked at Myka or HG Junior (as Pete insisted on calling him), that she would hope, and not fear. She hoped that in time it would become instinctive, but for now she would keep working on it.

Myka, too, was terrified by how she felt. The betrayal that she felt when she found out Helena was pregnant was still fresh, still a gnawing worry that lingered in the back of her mind. But she, too, chose to hope. She and Helena had managed to hold on to one another despite everything that life had thrown at them – and that they had thrown at each other – and she believed that Henry was their reward. Helena was a natural mother, and her joy in motherhood was wonderful to behold. Myka chose, every day, to live in hope.

The next few months were a whirlwind. Henry was a wonderful baby, but he was still a baby, and they were both sleep deprived and crabby. Myka was working on an off-Broadway play to fill in the time until the second season of Smash started filming. They were beginning to be recognised, both of them, and it was causing unexpected complications. Namely, that the network executives wanted them to pretend that they weren't a couple, to maintain the illusion of them both being hot and available heterosexual ladies, they supposed. How Myka and Helena were supposed to maintain that illusion despite their marriage being a matter of public record, and Helena's very public proposal which was on YouTube, the network didn't say. Myka was mad, but Helena was practically incandescent with rage. And hormones, probably. But a few meetings later, someone came up with the genius idea that people might like the idea that the two leading ladies were in fact married to one another. That women can like women seemed to be a revolutionary idea to some of the dinosaurs at the television network, but from the chatter that had inevitably sprung up on fan pages for the show, it appeared that those who were aware of Helena and Myka's relationship were in fact very positive about it. Too enthusiastically positive, in some cases, but such was life when one was in the public eye. They tentatively agreed that they would not volunteer information about their private lives when interviewed, but it was agreed that if they were asked directly, they could be honest.

There were also legal matters that needed to be attended to. Helena was fairly sure that either Dr Boone or Sam Martino was Henry's biological father. However, to ensure that she and Myka were not challenged at any point for custody of their son, they contacted both potential candidates through their lawyers to ask them to take a DNA test. It wasn't easy for Myka to deal with this reminder of Helena's betrayal. There were more than a few tears, some doors were slammed, and harsh words were exchanged. But after several sessions with Dr Frederic, and a lot of cuddling of young Henry, things became less fraught between them.

Dr Nate Boone was the father. He was no longer Myka's oncologist, of course, but he was Henry's biological father, it appeared. He was very happy to sign all manner of legal documents confirming that he relinquished all parental rights over their son. The lawyers had not mentioned what had led him to that decision, but the fact that he could potentially lose his medical license and his wife due to his unprofessional behaviour and his infidelity probably entered into it, Myka reasoned. She hated him, hated that he had slept with her Helena, touched her...but he had done the right thing, at least, and had cleared the way for Myka to adopt Henry formally. Which she did, before Henry was three months old. The love and joy in Helena's eyes as Myka signed the paperwork went a long way towards making up for Nate. And his eyebrows. (No, that wasn't true – nothing excused those eyebrows.)

The second season of the show began filming, and they were both working almost flat out for days at a time. They didn't get to see their son nearly enough. Helena was distraught at times, feeling that she was a horrible mother because she wasn't with Henry enough. Myka got her through those moments, reassuring her that she was a wonderful mother. Henry was surrounded by people who loved him, and by colour and music. Aaron spent a lot of time with them on set, making sure that Henry saw his mothers as much as possible. Their lives really were quite frantic, however. The show was popular and they were very much in demand, and were requested to appear on a number of chat shows. They managed to keep their relationship out of those interviews, but Helena couldn't resist a frank discussion with a well-known lesbian TV host after their interview. She was lovely about the whole thing, sympathetic and understanding about the pressure the network executives were exerting.

They had a few weeks off after the first half of the show was completed. They were exhausted, wrung out, and decided that they would get out of New York for a while. Helena was, for some reason, homesick for London, so they went to England for a week, Henry and Aaron in tow, to visit some of her old friends from school and college. They had a quiet but wonderful time. Helena was surprised and pleased that so many of her old friends remembered her and had been watching her career with interest. A young man called William Wolcott was particularly warm and kind. He had tried to help Helena after Christina's death, but had been rebuffed so many times that he gave up. He was genuinely delighted to see her so well and happy. They had several happy days of sightseeing and evenings spent talking and laughing with Helena's old friends at the local pubs. Myka loved London, and loved Bromley, where Helena was from.

Then the tabloids got wind of their presence – and pictures of them holding hands, kissing and walking with their son around London appeared in several newspapers. The network called them back to New York immediately. Helena was furious with the summons.

"We told them that we weren't going to pretend, Myka. Where do they get off telling us what to bloody do? As if we can't play straight women on stage or on screen because we're together in real life?" She blustered and shouted, but she calmed down eventually as Myka knew she would. Myka didn't have any intention of allowing the network to steamroll them into lying about their relationship either, but she preferred to wait until they got back home and heard what they had to say before reacting.

What 'they' had to say was not pleasant. The man who appeared to be in charge, who reminded Myka of Giles from Buffy, was harsh and uncomplimentary about the pictures that had been widely publicised in the UK and then the States. He was alleging that they had somehow breached their contracts by appearing in public together with Henry, and that their relationship should have been kept behind closed doors. After one sneer too many, Helena predictably lost her temper. Myka's blood pressure was soaring too, so she didn't even make any attempt to rein her wife in. This little twerp deserved everything he got.

After a fruitless argument, however, Myka stood up quietly, taking Helena's hand in hers.

"I am sorry, gentlemen, that you are unhappy that my wife and I were photographed together with our son while we were on holiday. As far as I understand it, we are not contractually obliged to maintain the illusion that we are either heterosexual or available, whether that be for your benefit or for that of the audience. If I am mistaken about that, you can feel free to let us know through our legal representatives. I would like to make one thing very clear to you all, however. Neither I nor Helena are ashamed in any way of who we are, or of our relationship – or of our son. We will not allow you to subject us to another one of these meetings, not ever again. I will happily discuss strategies for dealing with the media attention we have inadvertently attracted. But should anyone from the network or the production company mention this matter again in the rude and appalling way that this man has today," she pointed at faux-Giles, "then you will be hearing from our lawyers. Have I made myself clear?"

There were stunned nods from all present, even Helena, who was looking at Myka with wide eyes. Myka led Helena from the room, her head held high and her eyes challenging anyone at that table to dare to open their mouth. No-one did.

"I very much want to take you home and ravish you right now, Myka Bering-Wells," Helena whispered in her ear after they left the network office. Myka did not object.

The furore died down soon after. They appeared on that same chat show again, this time as a couple, and they were heartened by the content of some of the fan mail they received thereafter. Not all of it, of course. Helena was particularly disturbed when her assistant showed her a pair of women's panties that had come in the mail.

"They're sending me bloody knickers, Myka. What the hell?!"

Myka tried not to laugh, she really did. But when Helena said "knickers" she doubled over, trying extremely hard not to wet her own knickers. Helena's assistant fled in terror at Helena's expression. Helena, however, stopped glaring when Myka started whispering in her ear about what she'd like to do with Helena's knickers.

The show was not renewed for a third season. They were upset, but not surprised. Offers began to flood in for a variety of guest star roles on television, and even film, but they both decided to return to what they loved, which of course was Broadway. Acting was all very well, but as Myka often said, what was the point if nobody burst into song?


	12. Chapter 12

A/N

Trigger warning for minor character death

This was a very difficult chapter to write, and I honestly have no idea whether it's any good or not since it was so emotional for me. So I hope it is readable and I would like to dedicate it to a friend whose birthday falls today. You are the evil twin.

Time continued to turn, as it does, and Henry grew into a sturdy toddler. Their life together was not perfect. Steve broke up with Liam, and a few months later Myka came home early from rehearsal to find him kissing Aaron passionately in the kitchen. She backed out of the room quietly, and later she told Aaron that he shouldn't let Helena catch them making out in the apartment or she'd have an aneurysm. She was overprotective enough as it was – if she knew Steve was distracting Aaron when he was looking after Henry...well! Aaron nodded, terrified at the thought. He'd been subjected to enough of Helena's tantrums to try and avoid them at all costs.

Myka also told Steve off, gently, for distracting Aaron while he was working. Then she gave him a huge hug and whispered in his ear, "I hope you'll be very happy."

Claudia and Leena never got together, as far as Myka knew. Leena ended up marrying a director she'd met at work, a tall man with grey eyes and blonde hair. He loved her to distraction and she seemed even more serene when he was around, if such a thing were possible. Claudia started seeing a young guy called Todd who she'd met years before at the music store where she'd worked while they were at Juilliard. Pete and Amanda married too. All this happened within the first two years of Henry's life. The third year, though, something happened that was far less joyful. Tracy found a lump in her breast, and she called Myka in a panic, almost screaming that she was going to die. Myka went back to Colorado Springs, leaving Henry with Helena and Aaron, and picked Tracy up and brought her back to Manhattan. She and Helena arranged an appointment with an oncologist (not Dr Boone, oddly enough) and Tracy was in surgery two days later. For Helena and Myka, it was a terrifying reminder of their past, and of their potential future. They stayed at the hospital until Tracy came round from the anaesthetic, and Myka cried all the way home after they left her. She had Helena with her when she had her mastectomy, but Tracy had no-one.

"Do you want me to hire a nurse to look after Tracy, Myka?" Helena asked once they got home, and Myka had calmed down again after kissing Henry good night.

Myka shook her head. "I think – if it's okay with you – that I would like to look after her. You did it for me, but she has no-one. She only has me. My mom won't help, not now Tracy is here. My dad won't let her."

Helena reached over and pulled Myka close, stroking her closed eyelids and wiping the tears away with her thumb. She kissed Myka's hair and murmured, "Whatever you need, my love," into her ear.

Tracy's cancer had metastasised, and was found in her bones and ovaries. She had several more surgeries before she was ready to come home. Myka held her little sister as she cried over the loss of her breasts, as she herself had done years ago. She sat with her through the terrifying appointments, the alternating boredom and horror of radiation and chemotherapy, and the eventual appointment that told them what they already knew. The cancer was too advanced, and there was nothing more to be done except to try a few different treatments that might extend Tracy's life.

Myka was devastated. She felt like she'd only just found Tracy. They had started chatting once a week on Skype after the wedding and had discovered, to their mutual surprise, that they actually liked one another a lot. The things that had come between them when they were younger no longer seemed important. Tracy was a sweet and caring young woman, who had hardly begun to live. She had never met that one person who made her feel special, as Helena did for Myka, and now she was going to die. Myka wept for the life that Tracy would never have.

The end, when it came, was mercifully swift. Tracy was delirious one morning when Myka went in to check on her, and when the paramedics came, they gave each other swift looks that Myka and Helena couldn't interpret. At the hospital, the doctor told them that she had pneumonia. She had a few days, maybe less. If there was anyone else, any other family or friends, they should come now.

"Mom."

"Myka?" Her voice was weak, disbelieving. Myka hadn't heard it in almost ten years.

"Mom, it's Tracy. She's in hospital." There was an indrawn breath on the other end of the line.

"Is it the cancer?"

"Yes."

"How long?" Her mother's voice was quiet, almost a whisper.

"A few days, maybe. You need to come, Mom. She would want you to." Her mother was crying on the other end of the line.

They arranged to pick her up at the airport.

Tracy was unrecognisable, swollen from the steroids, bald from the chemotherapy. She was breathing in swift, shallow gasps because of the pneumonia. Jeannie cried hysterically for hours when she saw her youngest daughter. Myka tried to comfort her, but it was hard to even want to help this woman who had allowed her childhood to be an endless nightmare. Helena was torn between wanting to comfort Myka and wanting to berate Jeannie Bering for what she had done to her daughters.

Tracy died the following day. They flew her body back to Colorado Springs, and left the funeral arrangements to her mother. Myka and Helena left before the funeral. Myka couldn't bear the idea of seeing her father there, pretending to be human, crying for the daughter he actually gave a damn about.

When they returned home, they gathered with their friends in Central Park where they'd married, the place where Helena had first met Tracy. They laid flowers in the Conservatory Garden for the smiling young woman that they barely got to know.

Myka was not okay. Helena cancelled all of her commitments, and stayed by Myka's side through the worst of her grief. They did not speak much, they communicated mostly in soft touches and kisses. One day Helena asked Steve to look after Myka for the afternoon, and she went to see her therapist and voluntarily went back on her anti-anxiety medication. Tracy's death had hit her hard, and the fear of losing Myka had come back full-force. She wanted to be strong for Myka, to make sure that she didn't spiral out of control because she feared losing the woman she loved.

Steve stayed that evening, and when Myka was asleep on the couch, he asked Helena if she was okay.

"God, no. I'm not…how could I be? I watched that beautiful girl die horribly, from the same condition that Myka has. I am more terrified than I have ever been. The idea of that happening to Myka. God, Steve, that poor girl, she was so lovely and caring, she didn't deserve to die. If it happened to Myka, I don't know what I would do." She was crying, and Steve was too. Tracy was a sweet girl and he had come to care about her a lot. It had hit them all hard when she died.

"I know it's hard. But none of us know what's going to happen. It's scary, and yes, it's possible that it might happen to Myka. But you guys have done everything you can to make sure it doesn't happen. Worrying about it is only going to steal the joy from the time you have, Hel. She's here now, and so are you, and so is HG. Take joy in what you have, babe. Tracy did. I bet your Christina did." She smiled at him, thanking the gods for the friendship this man had offered her so many years ago. They both cried for a little longer, and Helena rested in Steve's arms for a while, watching Myka's chest rise and fall as she slept, exhausted.

Myka couldn't cry any more tears for Tracy. Her sister was gone. The sister she had envied and sometimes hated when they were children, but had grown to love when she was an adult. She had cried for days now, and all it had brought her was a headache. So she decided that, as it had been for so many other problems, work would be her solace. She talked to Helena about it quietly, and, seeing the resolve in her eyes, Helena reluctantly agreed. Myka auditioned for, and successfully got, the role of Serena Katz for the second time in her career. She had always really enjoyed Fame. The musical wasn't much like the film, but it was charming, if a little bit dated. But she was a little dated herself, so it suited her. Because she had an eidetic memory, she didn't need much rehearsal – just a briefing on the changes in the blocking and some of the staging. Every night thereafter (and two matinees a week) she sang for her sister. Every time she sang 'Bring on tomorrow' she felt something in her ease, a little. She felt that the music was a more fitting eulogy for her sister than the tears she'd been shedding at home.

She regretted not going to the funeral, not for her parents' sake, but for Tracy's. She knew that Tracy would have liked her to try to support their mother through her grief. She had tried, in the hospital, and later, when they were returning Tracy's body to Colorado. But try as she might, she could not find any connection to the woman she now referred to in her head as Jean Bering. A woman who'd allowed her to be belittled, abused and terrorised for her entire childhood. In some ways she thought her mother was the worse of the two. Her father was a bully and an abuser, but her mother had seen – and then deliberately unseen – all of it, and allowed it to continue. Mothers were supposed to protect their children. They were supposed to be the momma bears that Claudia had accused Helena of being. Not weak and insipid, allowing the abuse and encouraging it with their silence.

Myka spoke to Abigail about it during one of their sessions. Abigail was now more friend than therapist for the most part, where it used to be the other way round. But she was happy to see Myka whenever she needed to. And since Tracy had passed, Myka had been to see Abigail once a week at least.

"You know, Myka, it's natural – and totally understandable – to blame your mother. She was supposed to be protecting you. That's what parents are supposed to be there for. I don't know how I would react in your position, truth be told. As a woman, and as a mother, her behaviour – well, it's alien to me, really. But Jim – he's never given me any reason to protect our boys from him. If he did I would like to think that I would protect the kids first and foremost. But who can say how they would behave in any given situation, unless they've been there and done that? Jean Bering – whatever else she might be – was, and probably continues to be – an abused wife. Whether that's physical abuse - as you said it might be - or just mental abuse, she is still a victim. So maybe that's something to consider when you're trying to figure out your feelings. It doesn't excuse her behaviour, but it might explain it to a degree."

Myka nodded, thoughtfully. She seemed to spend most of her time in her sessions with Abigail thinking about other people's behaviour and trying to interpret it correctly. She still struggled to see pure motives in people's actions, always expecting the worst, expecting to be tricked or hurt somehow. She was working hard to try to see that some people were just nice, but it was hard to retrain her brain to think that way.

That night when she was singing 'Bring on tomorrow,' and playing at mourning the character of Carmen Diaz, she focused on the words and the way the song made her feel. That night she mourned for the mother she'd never had, for the life they should have had as children, just as much as she mourned Tracy.

She was glad she had practice at singing this part – her lines were so damn high, soaring like a teenage Joni Mitchell on steroids. She had a great range but she felt like she could shatter crystal some days.

Helena always laughed at her when she complained.

"I wish I had your range, my love. You shouldn't complain about it. 'Let's play a love scene,' always gives me goosebumps. It's all I can do not to fling myself onto the stage and have my wicked way with you, especially with Hugo fawning all over you as he does. But you do sound beautiful together." She nuzzled into Myka's neck through her unruly nest of hair. Hugo was playing Nick Piazza opposite Myka's Serena Katz. She thought he was lovely, if eccentric, but Helena kept insisting he was in love with her and was acting terribly jealous at times. Helena was still not working. She was at home with Henry, and she was driving Aaron mad. And Myka, truth be told.

"Your voice wouldn't shatter crystal, your voice _is_ crystal. You are a gorgeous creature, and your voice is as pure as your heart."

Myka groaned and blushed simultaneously. "You're killing me, Helena Bering-Wells. Your lines should be corny, but somehow they always work on me. Why is that?" She cocked an eyebrow sceptically at Helena, who was working her way down Myka's scarred collarbone with lips and tongue.

"Because I love you, and because you know that, corny or not, I mean every word." Myka smiled wryly.

"I guess that must be it." And with that she wriggled a little under Helena so she could kiss her.

She didn't cry that night, for the first time since they'd lost Tracy.


	13. Chapter 13

A/N I'm sorry for taking so long to update this fic, I had a bit of writer's block and I've been writing some other stuff in the meantime. It is almost finished now, however - only two or three more parts to go. Thanks for continuing to read. :)

* * *

A few months later, Helena had a new part in an off Broadway play based on a Hitchcock movie, and she ran into 'David' again. Myka gave her a dubious eyebrow when she announced this one evening after dinner. Helena was clearing the plates and Myka was cuddling little HG, who'd passed out after running around the room for an hour non-stop. His dark hair was sweaty and gross. Myka loved it, and was always pushing her fingers through the strands as the little dude slept.

"And?"

"He had...an interesting proposition for me."

Myka's eyebrow climbed higher. She knew that the time Helena had spent with David was after they'd split up, and that he wasn't one of the men Helena had cheated on her with during the months of madness, as they now referred to it. But that didn't mean she was pleased about Helena seeing him, accidentally or not.

" _And?"_

The eyebrow was in danger of leaving earth orbit.

"He is involved in the production of the new film of Wicked. As you know, he thinks highly of me and we've worked together before."

Myka shot her a glare.

Helena took a deep breath, her eyes wide.

"Anyway. He was wondering if we would be interested in auditioning together for the leads."

Myka's mouth dropped open.

"But...I thought Idina Menzel and Kristin Chenowith were supposed to be..."

Helena interrupted.

"So did I. But they are both getting on a bit, as David politely put it, and he wants to see what the casting people and the producers think of us. We did get a bit of a reputation when we played the Gershwin. There's a petition on the internet to get us cast as the leads, apparently. And we _are_ good together, love. Everything we've done together has gone really well, even when we weren't doing so well."

Her eyes were imploring. Myka's brain was going a mile a minute. It was true that they had really good reviews when they were on Broadway. And to do something like that – to be immortalised on film, doing the first movie of an iconic show, no less – it would be amazing. She wasn't – had never been in it for the fame, but a movie of this calibre, it could raise their profiles to the point where they would be in line for other movie projects, real A-list stuff. She wasn't averse to the idea. She tapped a finger on her lip, her other hand still playing with Henry's hair.

"And what do you think about this, Helena? Do you think it would be a good idea?"

Helena came to sit beside her, lacing her fingers between Myka's and playing idly with her wedding ring.

"I can't see how auditioning would be an issue. It's not like we haven't both done it a million times before. If we got the parts – well, I think we'd probably know at that stage if we wanted to do it or not, don't you? I've had a few calls where I was told I'd got a part and I realised at that moment that I didn't actually want it – I'm sure you have too."

Myka nodded, her eyes searching Helena's.

"I am a bit...anxious that it would involve David. That would be a big concern for me right now. Things between us are so good, I wouldn't want to throw a spanner in the works, you know?"

Helena stroked Myka's palm with a finger soothingly.

"I have a strange feeling, my sweet, that you will actually love him. He's quite a character. But I completely understand if you don't want to do this. I won't do it without you though. It wouldn't be right to play Elphaba without my Glinda opposite me. The chemistry would be all wrong." She smiled fondly and lifted Myka's hand to her mouth to kiss it softly.

"You are a charmer, babe. Always have been. I had no chance of resisting you, did I?" Myka smiled back, enjoying the feeling of Helena's lips on her hand.

"Of course you didn't. I am devastatingly charming, it's a well known fact."

Myka shot her a withering look.

"Yeah, a well known fact. Modesty is definitely not one of your strengths, Wells."

Helena chuckled.

"So do you want to think about it, my love?"

Myka nodded.

It didn't require much thought, after all. The idea was too tempting. They arranged to meet with David at a swanky Manhattan hotel, and he was, as Helena had said, quite the character.

"So, you're Helena's wife, huh? I would've thought she'd have gone for a blonde." He was tall and a little round, and jovial and Southern, and utterly, utterly charming. Myka liked him, very much against her own better judgement, but spent the whole time being rude to him anyway. He seemed to like it.

"She did, as it happens. A few. Martino was blond, right baby?" Myka looked at David coolly, taking a sip of her drink.

Helena was blushing and slightly ashamed. David laughed, a loud guffaw that had people at other tables turning around to see who was making all the noise.

"I like her, Helena. I think you met your match there."

Helena smiled wryly. "That's what they tell me."

"So, I saw you guys years ago when you did the show at Juilliard, and I've seen some of your work since. I think you've both got the maturity and talent to really make the movie work. And your chemistry on stage is off the charts. I saw one of the last shows at the Gershwin – you were incredible. People couldn't stop talking about you both in the foyer afterwards, and for months after, that's all I heard from casting agents and producers. I still don't remember who played Fiyero that night, nobody gave a damn about him. They were just mesmerised by you two. I think we could really have a hit on our hands if we capitalise on that."

Myka tried not to let the praise go to her head. He had slept with her Helena. She was supposed to hate him. But he was so damn _nice_. She gritted her teeth.

He picked up on it and shot her a grin. His teeth were the whitest thing she'd ever seen. She couldn't help smiling, shaking her head.

"So, for me, Wicked has always been a love story between these two women. I want to make it about the two of them – the two of you, if we're lucky – and try to capitalise on Frozen and all the other media that have challenged the whole idea of love at first sight with some dude and getting married after five minutes, and concentrate on the different kinds of love that make life worth living."

Myka was nodding despite herself. She'd been impressed by Frozen, and the idea of true love being a sister's love. And that Angelina movie with the wings too. She loved what he was saying, and she hated that she loved it. She tried to glare at him but it turned into a grin. Dammit.

He chuckled and continued.

"So, that's the way I want to go, and I think I can get the other producers and the studio on board once they see your chemistry and the way you guys always played it. Do you think you'd be up for that?" His face was serious now, and was looking from her to Helena.

Helena looked at her, her face open and one brow quirked slightly.

"It sounds perfect to me, to be honest. But it would have to be up to Myka."

Myka chewed her bottom lip.

"I think I would be open to auditioning. I love the approach you're suggesting, and I think it would be a great message to give to people. So, yeah. Let's try it."

David beamed, and Helena's smile was radiant.

The audition process was gruelling. They must have seen ten or twelve different groups of casting directors, producers, and various studio executives but eventually, they were cast in the lead roles. They didn't have to persuade anyone about the approach that David was planning; that was his job, thankfully. He was financing a significant portion of the cost and that bolstered his position somewhat. After a series of screen tests with a potential Fiyero, a young man they vaguely knew from Juilliard was chosen. He was a wonderful actor and had a beautiful voice. He, too, loved the approach that David wanted, and after some time and a lot of persuasion, the studio agreed. There was never any intention of changing the plot of the show; David just wanted the emphasis to be on Glinda and Elphaba, not on Elphaba and Fiyero. And not in a romantic sense, or at least not entirely – he wanted to capitalise on the idea that true love didn't _have_ to be the romantic kind. By leaving Glinda in the dark about her survival at the end, Elphaba is protecting her friend and true love. David actually shed a few tears in his presentation to the studio – something that both Myka and Helena thought had swung the vote his way.

"He really is something," Myka said conversationally as they had dinner that night. Henry was running around in his room, on a sugar high after Helena had allowed him to have ice cream. A slightly frazzled Aaron was trying to get him into the bath, unsuccessfully thus far.

"Who, David?" Helena asked, eyebrow raised quizzically as she chased some pasta around her plate with a fork.

"Yes, David," Myka said. "I didn't want to like him, but the way he's handling the studio and setting up the movie – I really respect him. I just hope the movie comes off the way we want, and not as some awful sort of queerbaiting."

Helena smiled.

"I told you. I knew you'd like him. And as to the queerbaiting - I doubt he would let that happen."

Myka rolled her eyes. "Stop being so smug."

Helena laughed, throwing her head back in that way that Myka loved so much.

"I knew you would like him. He is the only person, other than you, that I ever had an actual relationship with. I must point out that I am more than well aware of how wrong it was to sleep with a married man, but I was in no state back then to make rational decisions. He is a special person, though, and I am really pleased that you like him."

Myka nodded thoughtfully.

"I really did a number on you, didn't I?" She was staring at her food fixedly. She regretted fiercely the things she had said to hurt Helena and drive her away, and the fact that it had driven Helena to so much insane behaviour. The Helena she had met would never have dreamt of being the other woman, never mind cheating.

Helena put down her fork and took Myka's hand.

"Myka, look at me, love."

Myka raised her chin slowly and met Helena's eyes.

"We both did a number on each other, love. If I hadn't been so afraid of losing you, I wouldn't have done the things _I_ did. I think we can both agree that neither of us acted particularly admirably. I'm just so grateful that we are here today, with our son running around like an idiot in the other room, eating dinner together. Things could have turned out so differently. If I hadn't come back, if you hadn't taken me back after all my madness – things could have been so different. And I am so incredibly happy right now, Myka. So I forbid you to be upset. No more regrets. Everything that we have been through has brought us to where we are now."

She stood and moved behind Myka, putting her hands on her shoulders, leaning down to kiss her on the top of the head.

"Are you happy, Myka Ophelia Bering-Wells?"

Myka sighed as Helena began to massage her shoulders.

"Completely."

"So, no more nonsense." Helena planted herself squarely in Myka's lap and kissed her. Myka ran her hands up Helena's sides, fingertips trailing along her ribs.

"No more nonsense," she agreed, a little breathlessly. Helena ran her fingers through Myka's hair and kissed her more deeply, sliding her tongue against Myka's. Things began to get a little heated until Henry ran in, shouting.

"No bath! No bath!"

Aaron ran in after his young charge, looking harried and a lot older than he had when they'd hired him just a few years earlier. Myka laughed and smacked Helena on the ass to get her to stand up, then she grabbed Henry, whose face was streaked with the remains of the chocolate ice cream he'd eaten after dinner. She told Aaron to take the rest of the night off. She and Helena bathed Henry and read him a bedtime story. The bath sapped the rest of the ice-cream energy from their son, and he was asleep before Helena could turn the first page. She and Myka slipped out of the room quietly and went to take a decidedly more adult kind of bath.

"Do you think we should get a bigger place?" Myka asked Helena, as they sat in the bathtub that was slightly too small for both of them. It was fine right then, given that they weren't really in there for the bathing facilities, but sometimes it was a bit of a squeeze for the two of them and little HG to get ready in the morning.

"Why?" Helena asked as she trailed kisses down Myka's neck, her hands wrapped around her waist.

"Well, we're about to be movie stars, at least if you believe David, and we've been here…mostly…since Juilliard."

Helena's breath on her neck was making her hair stand on end, and Myka wondered for a moment if it would always be like this for them – so thrilling, even after so many years together.

"Well," Helena said, taking a moment to nip at Myka's shoulder sharply, drawing a whimper, "I would say that if you want to move just because we're about to be 'movie stars' that's not a great reason. This place is convenient for everything, at least at the moment. Henry's preschool is right around the corner, as is the new school for next year. And if we are to continue on Broadway it is as close as we could want really. And of course there are sentimental reasons, given the life we have had here together. But if you want to move somewhere new with room to expand our family, then I can't argue with that."

Myka turned sharply, sploshing water on the floor. Her mouth dropped open.

"Do you want more kids?" she asked, completely flabbergasted. She hadn't expected this. Henry wasn't planned and since they had him, things had been so crazy that they had never talked about kids.

Helena smiled at her surprise.

"Of course. But only if you do, love. I confess that although the conditions surrounding Henry's birth weren't ideal," Myka gave her a mock-filthy look at that, "I have never truly been anything but thrilled about having a child. And I have always thought that the idea of a little brood of Bering-Wells' children was rather adorable. Like the Von Trapps." She grinned.

Myka chewed on her lip for a moment, looking almost guilty.

Helena raised an eyebrow.

"What is it, love?"

"When I had my surgery…they took out my ovaries. I asked if I could keep some of my eggs, and they said I could, but there was a high chance of the child having Li-Fraumeni. So I got them to dispose of them. It was before we got back together, but I still…I feel like I should have talked to you about it. Like you should have had a say."

Helena half-smiled at her, but it was a sad smile.

"I would have loved to have a mini-Myka, sweetheart. To give birth to a child that looked like you? It would have been incredible. But the risks – I completely understand, darling. I believe that I would have made the same decision. And you have no need to be sorry. We weren't together, and in any case it is your body. Your decision."

She leaned forward and kissed Myka softly, drawing back to wipe away the tears from Myka's eyes.

"I'm so sorry that you never got to have your own biological child, my love. But Henry is as much your son as mine, and if we ever have any more children, they will be ours."

Myka took a deep breath, feeling a surprisingly intense relief. She had been holding on to that confession for a long time, and she must have been more worried about Helena's reaction than she thought. She looked at her wife, the intense brown eyes, the crinkles at the corners of her eyes, and her heart felt like it could burst within her.

"You are amazing," she said softly, and she leaned forward to kiss Helena gently, quickly moving to straddle her and causing a mini-tsunami that they later learned had resulted in a leak in the apartment downstairs. They didn't care, right then, (or indeed later – while they promised to pay for the damage, they both found it extremely difficult to keep a straight face when apologising) as they were so wrapped up in each other. Myka was convinced in the rather sweaty hour or so that followed that things would, indeed, always be just as thrilling between them.

The filming began in the summer. It was a mixture of wonderful and exhausting. They didn't get to see Henry very much at all. The post-production period of the show was set to be long and expensive, so the producers were trying to save as much money as possible on the filming itself, which meant that the shooting schedule was insane. Myka began to regret agreeing to audition for the movie in the first place, as her leg ached constantly. A tired and in pain Myka was a crabby Myka, and for once it was Helena who was required to support Myka, to help her through her black moods. The pain was reminding her of her surgeries and the chemo, which in turn reminded her of Tracy. She was, as usual, flawless when performing, but she was not herself otherwise. Whenever they weren't on set, Helena contrived to have Henry around as much as possible. When Myka was down, sometimes it was only Henry who could get her out of her head and in the moment.

It was incredibly strange to Helena that Henry, the little person that meant so much to them, had brought them together, when it was the manner of his conception that had almost destroyed them forever. Sometimes when she watched Myka and Henry together, she was filled with an intense wonder at the turns their lives had taken together.

About two thirds of the way through the filming process, they had a phone call from Aaron while they were in make-up, getting ready for another day's filming. Henry had fallen while running around in the apartment and had hit his head. He was briefly unconscious but had woken up fairly quickly. Aaron had called an ambulance as a precaution and they were on their way to hospital. Myka took the call and while she was frightened, she wasn't too worried. If it was really serious, Aaron wouldn't have sounded so calm. She told Helena what had happened, and was shocked when Helena turned white and almost passed out. The makeup artist was only just able to catch her before she fell over, and she and Myka lifted Helena onto a nearby couch. After a few moments, Helena was able to speak.

"I'm sorry, Myka. I just…that brought back some bad memories. You're sure he's all right?"

"Well, Aaron didn't sound too worried, honey. Are _you_ okay?"

Helena nodded, taking deep breaths.

Myka was worried, but the most pressing matter was Henry, so they made their way to the hospital as quickly as possible.

Aaron was there, pacing up and down and biting his nails.

"What happened?" Myka asked, more worried now that she could see how worried Aaron was.

"He's fine, Myka. He tripped over the rug again, and he didn't get up straight away. He was a little woozy, but he brightened up right away. The doctor should be out in a minute."

Myka nodded, feeling reassured. But Helena still looked a little grey, and Myka pulled her to a seat in the waiting room while they waited for the doctor.

"What is it, honey? He's okay."

Helena nodded distractedly, but she wasn't looking at Myka. She was staring off into space and chewing on her lip.

"Hey," Myka said, trying to get Helena's attention by taking both her hands. "What's going on in your head, Wells?"

Helena smiled faintly and looked at Myka.

"I'm so sorry, sweetheart. I…do you remember that first Christmas, when your father hit you?"

Myka smiled ruefully.

"I do. Even though it's one of the crappiest memories I have, it's also one of the best. Because I got to know you, and that makes me glad that I got hurt. Because we might not have found each other if I hadn't. I guess that's one thing I can thank my dad for."

Helena smiled at her, her face luminous for a moment.

"I love you, Myka."

"I know," Myka said, grinning. "Anyway, what about that first Christmas?"

"Well. Dr MacPherson, he came to see you? He was an old friend of my dad's. He met him at an event once, and he was – well, I'm sure he still is – a slimy little git, and he used my dad as a contact to help him meet other wealthy business people, so he could build up his practice and get rich. But he is a good doctor. Anyhow, he helped me after Charles was hurt. You remember that he said that I knew how to deal with head injuries?"

Myka nodded, curious. She hadn't thought about any of this for years.

"He taught me how to look after someone with a concussion, and how to spot the signs of bleeding in the brain. Because my brother Charles was beaten when he tried to defend me. There was a party, and I was a little drunk. This boy – he wouldn't leave me alone, and he kept trying to corner me and grope me. Like our old friend Walter Sykes," she said, her face darkening as the remembered the boy who had assaulted Myka so long ago.

"I hope he's enjoying his job cleaning toilets," Myka said darkly. Walter had been kicked out of Juilliard, and Myka had decided not to press charges, deciding that the loss of his chosen career in theatre would be punishment enough.

"Charles came to defend me, and pushed the boy away from me. He didn't know how violent the boy was. He apparently had a taste for violence as well as sexual assault. He beat Charles, and I was just…frozen, I suppose. I was only 16. I eventually called the police but Charles – his face was all smashed up. They took him to hospital and fixed his broken cheekbone and they wanted to keep him in, but he wouldn't stay in hospital. He signed himself out and came home. If I'd known what to look out for, I might have been able to help him. He had bleeding in his brain, and by the time we realised, it was too late, the damage was done. His brain was damaged. He couldn't learn anything new, he had this terrible memory. He was always sweet and smiling, but he wasn't really present anymore. I felt so guilty, afterwards. Dr MacPherson talked me through all the symptoms and signs, and he helped to look after Charlie after everything. He couldn't really look after himself anymore."

Helena sighed, and Myka leaned over to kiss her temple.

"I'm so sorry, sweetie. I didn't realise. What happened to the asshole that hurt him?"

"He was sent down for 7 years. To prison, I mean. There were lots of witnesses, and Marcus - he was the one who pulled him away – his father was a barrister and he prosecuted the case."

"Marcus, Christina's father?" Myka asked.

"Yes. That's how I met him, actually. I thought he was so gallant, rescuing Charles and me from that bastard. We went out for quite a while, but as soon as I found out I was pregnant, he was gone. His father kept trying to offer me money to say I wouldn't go to the press about Marcus knocking me up and then abandoning me. But I wasn't going to make trouble, I was just broken hearted that he didn't want me anymore."

Her chin was wobbling a little, and Myka stroked her face for a moment.

"I'm sorry, love. That must have been really difficult, especially when you were so young."

Helena smiled, a sad little smile that tugged at Myka's heart.

"Yeah, well – it doesn't compare to losing them all – Christina, Charles, my father – all in one go."

Myka pulled Helena close, kissing her closed eyelids gently.

"You're amazing, honey. That you're even standing after all that – you're just incredible. I love you."

Helena was crying, her face wet against Myka's lips. It was at that point that the doctor made an appearance.

"Hi folks. Are you Henry's moms?"

They turned as one and nodded, Helena wiping the tears from her cheeks quickly.

"He's fine. He knocked himself out for a second but we've done a few scans and there's no sign of any fractures or bleeding. I want to observe him overnight, just to make sure, but I'm confident that there's no need for concern."

Helena let out a sigh of relief.

"Thank you, doctor. Can we see him?"

"Of course. This way."

They followed the doctor into the small room, Aaron trailing behind. He'd moved away to give them some space to talk when Helena was upset, and he obviously didn't want to intrude.

"Come on, Aaron. He'll want to see you," Myka said, smiling. He sped up to catch up and she grabbed his hand.

"Thank you for taking such good care of him," she said, and his face brightened.

Henry had a spectacular bruise on the left side of his forehead, and his face was a little pale, but other than that he was his normal self. They sat with him until he fell asleep, and the doctor agreed that they could sleep in a cot in the room with him. They spent a restless night there, with Helena checking on Henry more often than the nurses, but the next morning he was deemed well enough to go home. There were no signs of any further damage, and even Helena was satisfied, after questioning the doctor thoroughly, that there was no need to worry.

After that small interlude, they went straight back into filming, and once again Myka struggled with exhaustion and serious pain in her leg. Helena asked her more than once if she wanted to pull out of the filming.

"I know it will cost us a fortune, darling. But I hate to see you in so much pain."

Myka grimaced as Helena massaged her leg after a particularly gruelling day on set.

"I want to do this, Helena. We both agreed. It's just harder than I thought. The pain is worse than it's ever been before. I promise I'll rest for a while, and I'll choose my next job carefully."

Helena looked at her doubtfully.

"Okay. But I want you to see a doctor, to see if there are any other treatments you can have to reduce the pain."

Myka nodded. They set up an appointment with a doctor who specialised in pain management – a specialty that Myka had never even realised existed – and they were offered some alternative therapies, like acupuncture and a TENS machine, which was a sort of electric pulse therapy that interrupted the pain signals to the affected area. The most effective treatment, however, was a medication that was initially developed for epilepsy, but had been found to be very effective in treating nerve pain of the kind that many cancer patients developed after surgery. A few days after Myka began taking the new pills, her pain lessened considerably, and the remainder of the filming, while still exhausting, was much more bearable.

The filming finally finished and the riotous wrap party was over. Myka and Helena decided to take some time to recuperate, and went to a health spa for a week. They spent their days being massaged and pampered with various treatments. Helena was relieved to see that the pinched look was gone from her wife's face.

"It's so nice to see you looking like that," Helena said. They had just woken up and Myka looked relaxed and calm, her features smooth and still instead of tense. Helena hadn't noticed, because it had happened so gradually, how much Myka's facial expressions – even her personality – had changed, simply because of the pain she was in.

"It's nice to feel like this," Myka said, sighing. "I hadn't realised how much the pain was wearing on me. When the pills started working – I felt like I'd been carrying this weight that I didn't even know was there, and then it was just gone."

Helena ran her fingers through Myka's curls, stroking her scalp a little with her fingernails.

"I hate to see you in pain," she whispered.

Myka smiled.

"It sucks. But we have a lot of things to be happy about, honey. Let's concentrate on that instead of on the crappy stuff, okay?"

Helena nodded, leaning over to kiss Myka softly.

"You amaze me, my love. What you've been through – I am stunned that you can just get on with things as you do."

Myka smiled wryly, her eyebrow quirking up in amusement.

"Well, what's the alternative, Helena? After everything, the cancer, the months of madness, I decided. I could accept what had happened and move on, or I could stand still, I could spend my time complaining about what was wrong in my life, and I would stagnate. I decided to accept it. I wanted – I _want_ \- a life with you in it, with happiness in it, and I am not going to let a stupid thing like pain stop me from having that. We don't know how much time we're going to have, and I want to enjoy it while we're here, together."

Her face had darkened somewhat during her speech, and Helena took the opportunity to kiss her face softly, little butterfly kisses on her cheeks, her nose, her eyelids, her lips.

"I love you, Myka. You are incredible, and I love you."


	14. Chapter 14

Myka decided, after the filming was over, to take a long break from work to allow her body to rest. Her agent had warned her that the publicity for the Wicked movie was going to be gruelling, and she wanted to be ready for it. Helena decided that, since they could, she would take the time off with her, and they spent several months at home with Henry.

"Helena, you know when we talked before about having another kid?" Myka asked absently one evening as they were watching television together; something they rarely did.

"Yes, darling," Helena said, groaning a little as Myka ran her fingers through her hair, massaging her scalp lightly.

"I want – I think I would like that," Myka said, leaning over slightly to meet Helena's eyes. Helena's head was in her lap and she hadn't been able to resist burying her fingers in her hair.

Helena looked up at her in surprise.

"Really? You want another?"

Myka smiled shyly.

"Yes."

Helena's eyes widened.

"Well, I didn't expect that, love. I have to be honest. I thought, after Henry, you wouldn't want any more."

"Well, I have to admit that the circumstances in which he was conceived weren't ideal," Myka said with an eye roll that threatened to dislocate her eyeballs, "but I love Henry, and I love you, and the idea of another one just makes me feel really happy. And I want more happy. We've had a crapton of stuff thrown at us, honey. More happy has to be good, right?"

Helena smiled up at her.

"I agree, my love. More happy is fine by me."

Myka's answering smile was luminous.

They decided, after that particular conversation, to look for a bigger place. They started to look for houses in upstate New York.

"We can always keep the apartment as a base for when we're working in the city," Helena reasoned, and Myka agreed.

It took a while, and it was frustrating, but they eventually found somewhere they loved. It was a former carriage house in the Catskills. Myka argued that they should get something more modest, but her argument was more to do with her frugal nature than any financial difficulty. Between the money Helena's father left her, and their considerable joint earnings, they had a lot of money saved. Eventually Myka capitulated to Helena's relentless coaxing, and they bought the house without any further fanfare.

"We should start looking for a sperm donor, don't you think?" Helena asked, conversationally, as they sat in a small restaurant near their new home.

"I think maybe we should wait until after the movie has come out and all the crazy publicity is over, babe. I think trying to get pregnant at the same time as all that stress is a really bad idea."

As an afterthought, she added, "Also, I veto any further mention of sperm when we're eating."

Helena paused for a moment.

"Okay, you might have a good point, there," she conceded grandly. Myka smiled at her antics.

"What about? Not getting pregnant yet, or talking about sperm over dinner?" Myka said, laughing. And then after a moment, she added, "I love you, you idiot," taking Helena's hand and kissing it.

"I love you too, even though you did just call me an idiot," Helena said, with a mock-frown.

Helena was incredibly glad that she took Myka's advice, when it came to the promotion and publicity surrounding the release of the movie. They had both been working on Broadway and on television for a number of years, but neither of them were prepared for the incredible intensity of promoting a movie. The only experience she could liken it to was their wedding. It was wonderful, yes, but also intensely tiring and essentially a blur of faces that they would never remember afterwards. She couldn't imagine what it would have been like to be pregnant while they were first travelling what felt like the entire United States, followed by most of the rest of the world, appearing on countless television programmes in different countries and being interviewed over and over again with the same inane questions about what they were wearing and did they have any issues with their co-stars and jealousy because they were a married couple. After a particularly rude conversation with a television host in a supposedly progressive country, the rest of the tour in that part of the world was cancelled. David was concerned about their safety in countries where homosexuality was frowned upon or, in some cases, illegal altogether.

"Half of those countries aren't even releasing the movie anyway, so it's a waste of our time and too much of a risk to send you there, ladies. Is that okay with you?"

They both nodded, relieved at cutting some of the time off the tour and also, after being asked who was the man and how did their parents feel about their relationship, relieved that they wouldn't be put in the position to have to face questions like that again.

"I almost punched him in the face, Myka," Helena fumed later in their hotel room.

"I know, sweetie. I think I would have joined in, to be honest. How did someone like that even get a job on TV, seriously?"

Helena sighed, running her fingers through her hair.

"I think it's just a sad fact of life that there will always be people who fear and hate what is different to them, what is 'other'. Life has changed so much even in our lifetime but I fear there is still a long way to go."

Myka leaned over from her prone position on the bed and kissed Helena's cheek.

"That's why we have each other, honey."

Helena turned her head and gave Myka a kiss with _intent_ , and they didn't speak for a while after that.

The premiere for the movie was in Los Angeles, and they invited all of their friends as guests. The studio paid to put everyone up, and they spent a pleasant few days with Claudia, Steve, Pete, Amanda, Abigail and even Leena, drinking on the beach and going for meals in the city's many and varied restaurants. The night of the premiere came quickly and they both, after some consultation with the producers and studio executives, to wear dresses. People would comment however they dressed, so they decided to just go with what made them both happy. As they had for their wedding, they depended on Steve to help them choose. The studio had offered them stylists and designer label clothing which they had taken advantage of for the endless interviews and events they'd attended up to that point, but for the premiere they wanted to be comfortable, to be themselves. A few of the execs had what Claudia would have described as a 'shit-fit' over that decision, but once again David backed them up and they went with what made them happy.

The premiere itself was surreal. The red carpet – the constant flash photography, the endless questions – it went by like a dream. But they would always remember the first time they got to watch the movie in its entirety, and the moment afterwards when the cast were called to take a bow, and they received what Steve later called a 'standing ovulation' from the invited guests.

"Seriously, if you guys were single, you could have had so much famous pu…"

" _Claudia!"_

"Sorry."

Publicity for the movie dragged on for some time. Mostly because it was doing incredibly well. The reviews were overwhelmingly positive, especially concerning the direction of the movie in implying that Glinda was Elphaba's true love, and that she had sacrificed her happiness to keep her safe. After a while, however, they became tired of the merry-go-round of interviews, appearances at events and posing in front of sponsor messages in a variety of different outfits.

"If I'd wanted to become a model, I would have become a bloody model! The publicity has already taken up three times the amount of time we actually spent filming, and we're nowhere near done!" Helena complained one day as they were eating lunch in between appearances on daytime talk shows.

"I know, Helena honey. But this is what it takes to make money in movies," David said, soothingly, stroking her arm gently.

"David, I like you, despite everything, but if you don't take your hands off my wife right now I will kick you in the nuts, and that's just for starters," Myka said, her teeth gritted and her face contorted in what might have been meant to be a smile (but looked more like the face of a tiger that's about to pounce).

He yanked his hand away as if he'd been burned, and Helena almost laughed, but stifled it into her napkin as she caught Myka's warning glare.

Myka stood and walked around the table, leaning over David, her fingers playing with his bolo tie as if they were playfully flirting.

"I will come to your house in the dead of night and sneak into your bedroom, David, and I will Cut. It. Off." she whispered into his ear. "Do not test me."

She straightened up, smiling, looking demure and beautiful in her form-fitting blue dress. David smiled nervously, and said, "Message received, little lady," his face alternating between terrified and turned on.

When she sat back in her chair, Helena's expression looked pretty much the same as David's. Myka smiled smugly and continued eating her salad.

Their lives changed drastically even in the first three months after the movie was released, becoming what felt like one endless interview with an ever-changing face opposite them, but by the time the release had made its way round the world, they knew what it was like to have the eyes of the entire world on them. They were hounded by paparazzi in New York, and after several days of being ambushed by sweaty scumbags (Helena's words) trying to piss them off in order to get a picture that they could sell to some slimy tabloid, they decided to move to the new house a little early. It was still being renovated but it was isolated and as far as they knew, no-one was aware that they had purchased it – yet.

They had to pull a bit of an operation to even get out of New York without being followed by the aforementioned scumbags. Thankfully, they had plenty of female friends who could masquerade as the Bering-Wells ladies and draw away the paparazzi in order for them to escape. Amanda Lattimer and Abigail Cho volunteered, the former delighted at being able to wear a wig and put one over on the photographers who had plagued her, too, on several occasions (due to some entirely manufactured feud between her and an older co-star on a television show). Abigail was just delighted to get a day away from listening to other people's problems and she reported back at a later date that she had an awesome day riding around in circles in a limousine drinking champagne.

They finally managed to escape the city and, when they arrived at their new home, they both breathed a sigh of relief. Aaron had Henry at Steve's – they were at that point in their relationship were they had moved in together in all but name, but no-one had said it out loud yet.

"I can't believe how much of a fucking nightmare this is," Helena said, sitting on their new couch in their giant (by New York City standards) new living room. She had her head thrown back and was pinching the bridge of her nose in an entirely dramatic fashion.

Myka chuckled, and Helena sat up, looking affronted.

"What, pray tell, are you laughing at?"

Myka smirked at her.

"Pray tell? What is this, Downton Abbey? I'm laughing at your drama, sweetheart. It's a bit unpleasant, yes, but I can't say this is the worst thing that's ever happened in my life. Nor, I would guess, can you. Am I right?" She raised an eyebrow at Helena challengingly.

Helena sighed.

"I suppose you're right. A lot of people would give their left arm to have our sort of problems. But it's a bit inconvenient, you have to admit."

Myka lay down, stretching her long body out on the couch with her head on Helena's lap.

"Yes, inconvenient. That's a good word. And I would quite happily poke every one of those photographers in the eye if I thought I could do it without getting sued. But we're away from them for now, so let's just enjoy being here together for this unexpected quiet time – at least until Aaron can get here with Henry."

It was, in the end, not a quiet time at all. They went to bed early that first night, but the following morning Myka found an email in her inbox that, inexplicably, seemed to have come from Tracy. Her blood ran cold at the sight of her sister's name in her inbox.

 _From: Tracy Bering_

 _To: Big Sis_

 _Myka_

 _This is your mother. I'm so sorry to contact you in this way. I imagine seeing an email from Tracy must have come as a bit of a shock. I need your help. I saw your movie, and I saw your dedication to Tracy. I started thinking and, to cut a long story short, decided to leave your father. I had planned to come to you in New York. He found out and he is keeping me here. I tried to fight him but he's stronger than I am. Thankfully he didn't know that Tracy's old laptop was still under her bed. Can you please help? I know you don't owe me anything, Myka, and I am sorry to ask. If you can help, I would rather not get the police involved. If you aren't able or willing to help me yourself – which I would completely understand – then please, call someone for me?_

 _I know you have no reason to believe me, but I love you dearly, Myka. I'm so sorry._

 _Jean_

Myka must have made a noise of some sort, because Helena came running in from the bathroom.

"Myka, what's wrong?"

Myka just handed Helena her tablet. Helena read the email and sat down next to her, running her hand through Myka's hair soothingly.

"Are you okay, darling?"

Myka nodded mutely, tears in her eyes.

"Bit of a shock, seeing Tracy's name?"

She nodded again.

"Do you want me to call the guys? We can all go there and sort this out, and we'll get the police involved if we can't do that ourselves?"

Myka nodded again.

Helena went to make the necessary phone calls, and within a few hours they were on the way to the airport to make the journey to Colorado Springs.

 _It was a few months before the movie was due to come out, and Myka had been thinking, a lot. Tracy was gone, and Myka felt like she'd lost a limb. There was this pain related to something that was no longer there, that had nothing to cling to. She could handle pain, emotional or physical. She was used to it. She was just beginning to realise that she didn't always **have** to. _

_She made an appointment to see David, and when she appeared at his office without Helena he began to look alarmed._

 _"Look, I don't know what you've heard, Myka, but there's nothing going on…"_

 _"Shut up, David," she said irritably._

 _His eyebrows climbed but he did as she asked, simply waiting to see what she had to say._

 _"I'm here to ask you for a favour," she said shortly._

 _"Okay," he said, hesitantly._

 _"My sister Tracy died a while ago. I want to put a dedication to her at the end of the movie. Can that be done?"_

 _He frowned a little as he thought._

 _"It will take a little persuading. Usually dedications like that are made when it's someone who was part of the cast or crew. But I think I can make it work."_

 _She looked at him suspiciously._

 _"You would do that for me?"_

 _He sighed._

 _"You know, whatever you might have heard about me, Myka, I have always followed my heart. When Helena and I were together all those years ago, I knew I was just a distraction for her. But I loved her. And I still do – in a different way, now. Because I can see how much you two love each other. And I know how much it must mean to you, this dedication, for you to come to **me** to ask. So yes, I would do that for you. For the affection I still hold for Helena, and the affection I feel for you, despite how prickly and scary you are."_

 _She raised an eyebrow at him._

 _"That's what I'm talking about. Scary. But yes, Myka. I will see what I can do, okay? And if there's ever anything else I can do for you, come see me. Because if nothing else, you and Helena are going to make me a buttload of money on this movie, so I owe you."_

 _She laughed and thanked him. A week or so later, she got an email from him._

 _"Crazy lady_

 _Dedication is approved. Send me the text and I'll get it done._

 _David"_

 _She told him what she wanted it to say, and when she saw it for the first time at the premiere, she cried._

 _"For Tracy Bering…You'll be with me, like a handprint on my heart."_

The flight to Colorado Springs was uneventful. Helena had made some calls and they were able to use a private jet that belonged to the studio, so it was at least restful. Pete and Steve were there, along with Aaron (HG was staying with Abigail and her boys) and two of Pete's dancer friends. They were enormously tall and broad, these guys, and while both of them would probably faint if someone actually picked a fight with them, they looked the part. Myka mentally named them Bert and Ernie. Helena kept them all entertained during the flight, whereas Myka was fighting with herself internally. She felt like a fool for running to her mother's aid, when Jean had never come to hers. And she was worried sick about what her father might have done in the meantime. The email had been sent late the night before. That meant it was less than 24 hours ago, but there were no guarantees when it came to Warren Bering's temper.

They had a car service meet them at the airport, with a truck and driver to meet them at Bering and Sons – for Jean's belongings. Myka buckled herself in and was chewing on her lip when Helena leaned over gently pulled her bottom lip from between her teeth, kissing it gently.

"It'll be okay, love."

Myka just looked at her, trying not to cry.

"It will be okay," Helena repeated, more insistently this time. Myka nodded and closed her eyes, dozing for the short journey into the city.

She was trembling when she stepped out of the car in front of the building she hadn't seen since her first year at Juilliard. She had never confronted her father, not really. She wasn't entirely prepared to do so now.

"I'm here, Myka," Helena reminded her. "You're not alone. I think that between the two of us, not to mention the testosterone team behind us, we can manage one bully."

Myka squared her shoulders, smiling for a second.

"You're right. Let's go."

She knocked on the door sharply, and when her father answered the door, blinking owlishly at her, she was stunned. This – this old man was the ogre she'd been so terrified of her whole life? She suddenly realised that he didn't recognise her.

"Can I help you?" he said, confused.

"Yes. You can let my mother leave," she said. He blinked again and then his eyes widened. He tried to close the door in their faces but Myka had anticipated that, and she jammed her foot in the door. Between her and Helena they pushed it open.

"You can't do this! This is my home. You're not welcome here," he stammered, as she pushed him – gently - out of the way.

"Oh, don't worry, _Dad_ , we're not staying."

"I'll call the police," he blustered.

"Go ahead," she said, coolly, staring him down. "I'm sure they'll be very interested to hear your explanation as to why I received an email from my mother telling me that she's being held against her will. And I'm pretty damn sure she'll have some interesting injuries to show them, if I know you. What's the minimum sentence for false imprisonment, Helena? Do you know?"

Helena pretended to consider.

"I'm not entirely sure, love. It's a felony, I believe, where violence or the threat of violence is involved. I believe one could face twenty years in prison for such a crime."

Her father glared, but it didn't frighten her anymore. She was taller than he was, and he was a faded ghost of the man he used to be – the man she used to be so terrified of.

"Where is she?" she demanded quietly.

He gestured irritably towards the apartment upstairs, and she made her way up with Helena in tow, and their testosterone team behind them.

Myka's mother was sitting at the kitchen table, an icepack held to her face. She looked up in surprise when she saw Myka enter.

"Myka! You came? Thank you, honey," she cried before dissolving into tears. Myka went to her and held her for a moment until she stopped sobbing.

"It's okay, mom. You're safe now. Are you coming with us?" Myka asked, half expecting her mother to have changed her mind.

"Yes," Jean said, her face determined.

"Okay, then. Show us what you want to take with you and the guys will pack it up."

The guys made quick work of the packing, boxing up Jean's belongings quickly. She didn't want any of the furniture other than a rocking chair that her mother had left to her, but she had a truly impressive collection of books.

"I see where you get it from," Helena murmured, as they watched Jean directing the packing.

"Well, my dad might own the bookstore, but it was mom who used to read to me. If I inherited my love for reading from anyone, it was from her."

Her father had slunk into the apartment after them, and was watching the packing operation with a glare on his face.

"You can't do this," he said, suddenly.

Myka turned to look at him impassively.

"Can't do what, exactly?"

"Those are my books. You can't take them. I paid for them."

Jean looked from him to Myka worriedly. Myka stared her father down, stepping forward into his space as she spoke.

"You can prove that, can you? That you bought each and every one of those books? Because I can get the police down here to resolve the situation. I think Mom will probably end up with those books and everything else you own once you're sent to prison, but that's up to you. If they're that important."

He closed his mouth and shook his head.

"That's what I thought."

The packing was finished relatively quickly. Bert and Ernie stayed in the room with Myka, her mother and Helena, their arms folded. Warren kept looking as if he wanted to say something, but in the face of those giant men, he kept his mouth shut. Finally, it was done, and Myka asked her mother if she wanted to say goodbye.

"No, thank you Myka. He said goodbye to me when he gave me this," she said, pointing to her swollen face.

Myka nodded.

"Let's go, then."

She stood in front of her father, blocking him from making any intimidating moves towards her mother as she left the apartment. He stared at her in disbelief as the last woman in the family broke away from his influence.

"You…you ungrateful little bitch!" he started, and then he closed his mouth as the tall guys stepped forward threateningly.

"Shut up, Dad," Myka said dismissively. Then they walked out of the apartment and out of Warren Bering's life for good.


	15. Chapter 15

A/N Thank you for sticking with me to the end of this fic. I have really enjoyed writing it.

* * *

EPILOGUE

They were in the Conservatory Garden in Central Park, this time in linen suits. Still chosen carefully by Steve, but suits nonetheless. Helena was adjusting the flower at Myka's lapel – an orchid.

"You look beautiful, my love," she murmured softly, tilting her face up to kiss Myka softly.

"You're biased, Wells. But you, however, are stunning," Myka replied, grinning.

And she was, truly. Her hair, which was beginning to show hints of silver, was cascading down her back, dark but shimmering in the intense sunlight. Sometimes Myka just had to pause, to take in the fact that this woman had chosen her. Even after everything they'd suffered, they were still together, and still happy. It had been a year since they had rescued Jean Bering from Warren. Her mother was a different person now - a happy, confident woman. She looked after HG and Tracy now full-time. They had remodelled part of the house in the Catskills to make a self-contained home for Jean, once they had agreed that she was going to be the children's nanny. Tracy was three months old, now, and Helena had bounced back from pregnancy once again, looking sickeningly perfect as always. Myka was fairly sure that if she had been able to carry a child, she wouldn't have looked like _that_ just a few months afterwards. Helena smiled and kissed her again.

"What are you thinking about so hard, darling?"

"You," Myka said, leaning to kiss Helena again.

"Hey, save it for the reception, best ladies," Claudia's voice cut through the noise of the waiting crowd. She was the master of ceremonies, today.

Helena gave her a mock salute.

"SIR YES SIR!"

Claudia shot her a filthy look. She worked exclusively for Arthur Nielsen now, as his second in command. They bickered like parent and child, but it was clear that she loved the old man, and he her. She was still just as foul mouthed, if a little smoother round the edges.

"Just do what you're told, Bering-Wells."

Steve and Aaron appeared, dapper and handsome, walking hand in hand up the aisle together. They had decided to forgo the more traditional aspects of a wedding, and were walking into their new life together, in the same way they intended to live it from then on.

"Did we look like that, do you think, on our wedding day?" Helena asked Myka quietly as they stood in front of the crowd waiting for the grooms to arrive.

The guys were radiant with happiness and Myka had a huge lump in her throat watching them walk through the gathering of friends and family to begin their married life together.

"I hope so," she said quietly. Helena smiled at her and took her hand. Whatever life had thrown at them, they had survived together. It was on days like this that Myka relished the small things; like the way Helena's smile made her feel like there was something bright and bubbling inside her chest, and the way her wife's hand felt as she stroked Myka's palm softly, or the way the sunlight turned their son's hair to molten gold as he slept contentedly in his grandmother's arms with his sister sleeping next to them. It was those small things - and a million others - that made the really shitty stuff seem like nothing, like bumps in the road instead of giant mountains of pain that had nearly ruined them. Their voices joining in song with their friends – Abigail, Claudia, Amanda (but never Pete), soaring together as they celebrated Steve and Aaron's marriage – the smile on Steve's face, the awe on Aaron's – all of those things would stay in her memory and help her to live through those times when things weren't okay. That feeling of harmony drowned out the other stuff, and when she was next to Helena Wells, the woman she'd spent almost half of her life loving, she was effortlessly filled with hope. Their journey was not over – not by a long chalk – but she could say now that instead of fearing what the future might hold for them, as she had for so long, she felt only hope. And for Myka Bering, Broadway star, TV star and now movie star, that was more than enough.


End file.
